Skip to main content

Section 10.1 Hotel Infinity

Subsection 10.1.A Hotel Infinity

Activity 10.1.A Hotel Infinity Puzzle.

In this puzzle, we’re going to a series videos on Hotel Infinty by mathematician Tova Brown. Be sure to pause after each part to answer the questions.
  1. Watch Hotel Infinity, Part One and pause at the end. Hotel Infinity is full one new guest arrives, the President of Space. How do you find a room for her? (Watch video for rules.)
  2. Watch Hotel Infinity, Part Two and pause at the end. Hotel Infinity is full when a bus load of infinitely many football players shows up. How do you find rooms for them?
  3. Watch Hotel Infinity, Part Three and pause at the end. Hotel Infinity is empty when an infinite number of busses, each with infinitely many football players show up. How do you find rooms for them?
  4. Watch Hotel Infinity, Part Four and pause at the end. Hotel Infinity is empty when Visitors arrive (in a blob). How do you find rooms for them?
  5. Watch Hotel Infinity, Part Five and pause at the end. Why is it impossible to fit all the Visitors in Hotel Infinity?

Subsection 10.1.B The Definition of Discrete

We can formalize our findings about Hotel Infinity by defining what it means for (infinite) sets to be the same size.

Definition 10.1.2 Countable and Uncountable Sets.

Β 
  1. Sets \(S\) and \(T\) are the same size set (have the same cardinality) if there exists a pairing between \(S\) and \(T\text{,}\) as defined in DefinitionΒ 6.3.13. Equivalently, if there exists a function \(f:S \to T\) that is a bijection (onto and one-to-one). For example, \(\{0,1,2,3\}\) is the same size as \(\{5,6,7,8\}\) because we have the pairing \(0 \leftrightarrow 5, 1 \leftrightarrow 6, 2 \leftrightarrow 7\text{,}\) \(3 \leftrightarrow 8\) or, equivalently the function \(f:\{0,1,2,3\} \to \{5,6,7,8\}\) defined by \(f(n)=n+5\) is onto and one-to-one.
  2. A set \(T\) is countable if it is the same size as the natural numbers \(\mathbb{N}\text{.}\) That is, if there is a bijection \(f:\mathbb{N} \to T\) that is onto and one-to-one. For example, \(T = \{n \in \mathbb{Z} \mid n \ge 5\} = \{5,6,7,8, \ldots\}\) is countable because \(f:\mathbb{N} \to T\) defined by \(f(n)=n+5\) is onto and one-to-one.
  3. A set \(T\) is uncountable if it is not countable. For example, the interval \([0,1] = \{x \in \mathbb{R} \mid 0 \le x \le 1\}\) is uncountable, as shown in the video Hotel Infinity, Part Five.
There are several equivalent characterizations of countable.

Remark 10.1.3 Alternative characterizations of countable.

The following statements are equivalent.
  1. The set \(T\) is countable. (There is a bijection \(f: \mathbb{N} \to T\text{.}\))
  2. The set \(T\) fits into and fills Hotel Infinity.
  3. There is a sequence that lists each element of \(T\) exactly once. (Recall that a function with domain \(\mathbb{N}\) is a sequence starting at 0.)
Let’s show that the integers are countable using RemarkΒ 10.1.3 (c).

Example 10.1.4 The integers are countable.

Show that the integers are countable by finding a sequence that lists each integer exactly once.
Solution.
Consider the sequence
\begin{equation*} 0,1,-1,2,-2,3,-3,4,-4, \ldots\text{.} \end{equation*}
The pattern defining this sequence should be clear but we can write a rule for fun. For \(n \ge 0\text{,}\) define
\begin{equation*} a_n = \left\{ \begin{array}{cl} 0 \amp \text{ if } n=0 \\ \frac{n+1}{2} \amp \text{ if } n\text{ is odd }\\ ^-\frac{n}{2} \amp \text{ if } n\text{ is even } \end{array} \right. \end{equation*}
We are now ready to define the topic of this course.

Definition 10.1.5 Discrete.

A set is discrete if it is finite or countable.
I think I’ll stop here.
 1 
β€œI think I’ll stop here,” This is how, on 23rd of June 1993, Andrew Wiles ended his series of lectures at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge. The applause, so witnesses report, was thunderous: Wiles had just delivered a proof of a result that had haunted mathematicians for over 350 years: Fermat’s last theorem. Source: https://wild.maths.org/andrew-wiles-and-fermats-last-theorem