Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2018/ia/paper-4/8e/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ia Paper 4 8E Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
A set is countable if it is finite or bijects with a subset of . For any , the Cantor diagonal argument set differs from every at . Hence no such map is surjective. Binary sequences are indicator functions of subsets of , so is uncountable.
For , eventually. Choose after which this holds and then larger than all . The positions would contain all values , a contradiction. Thus is empty, hence countable.
For , eventually. For every sufficiently large , all values occur in positions , so this initial segment is invariant. Comparing consecutive invariant initial segments gives eventually. These are the finite-support permutations, of which there are countably many. Hence is countable.
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