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Concept
Empty set
Summary
In mathematics, the empty set is the unique set having no elements; its size or cardinality (count of elements in a set) is zero. Some axiomatic set theories ensure that the empty set exists by including an axiom of empty set, while in other theories, its existence can be deduced. Many possible properties of sets are vacuously true for the empty set.
Any set other than the empty set is called non-empty.
In some textbooks and popularizations, the empty set is referred to as the "null set". However, null set is a distinct notion within the context of measure theory, in which it describes a set of measure zero (which is not necessarily empty). The empty set may also be called the void set.
Null sign
Common notations for the empty set include "{ }", "", and "∅". The latter two symbols were introduced by the Bourbaki group (specifically André Weil) in 1939, inspired by the letter Ø in the Danish and Norwegian alphabets. In the past, "0" was occasionally used as a symbol for the empty set, but this is now considered to be an improper use of notation.
The symbol ∅ is available at Unicode point U+2205. It can be coded in HTML as and as . It can be coded in LaTeX as . The symbol is coded in LaTeX as .
When writing in languages such as Danish and Norwegian, where the empty set character may be confused with the alphabetic letter Ø (as when using the symbol in linguistics), the Unicode character U+29B0 REVERSED EMPTY SET ⦰ may be used instead.
In standard axiomatic set theory, by the principle of extensionality, two sets are equal if they have the same elements (that is, neither of them has an element not in the other). As a result, there can be only one set with no elements, hence the usage of "the empty set" rather than "an empty set".
The empty set has the following properties:
Its only subset is the empty set itself:
The power set of the empty set is the set containing only the empty set:
The number of elements of the empty set (i.e.
Official source
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