The integers are countable: for and for is an injection . Hence is a countable set. The map is a surjection onto the rational numbers, so the image result already proved gives is countable. Unique reduced fractions are not required for this surjection argument.
For the final unheaded geometry request, suppose for contradiction that no two distinct circles in the collection intersect. Restrict to the subcollection of circles tangent to the -axis. Each such nondegenerate circle has a unique tangency point, and the tangency-point map is a surjection by the hypothesis.
The closed disk of a circle tangent at meets the -axis only at . Two distinct members of cannot have nested disks: if one disk were inside the other, its tangency point would belong to the larger disk, so both tangency points would be equal and both circle boundaries would pass through it. That already contradicts nonintersection. Circles with disjoint boundaries and no nesting have disjoint disks. Thus their open disks are pairwise disjoint.
By the density of the rational numbers, every nonempty open disk contains a point of , which is a countable set. Fix an enumeration of and assign to each disk the first enumerated point inside it. Disjointness makes this assignment an injection. This is the countability of pairwise disjoint open disks, and proves that is a countable set. Its surjection onto would make the real numbers countable, contrary to the Cantor diagonal argument. Therefore
The proof allows circles on either side of the axis and counts tangential contact as intersection; it does not assume that all circles in the original collection are tangent to the axis.
A set of prime numbers has Dirichlet density if the following limit exists:
Equivalently, the denominator can be , since that sum is . Adding or removing finitely many prime numbers leaves the Dirichlet density unchanged.
Put and . This is the splitting field of , whose four roots of a polynomial are . The polynomial is an Eisenstein polynomial at , so . Since is contained in the real numbers, it does not contain , giving . Thus is a Galois extension of degree . Its Galois group is the dihedral group of order : the field automorphisms , and , satisfy and .
For an odd prime number , the condition means that the finite field contains all fourth roots of unity. Under this condition, is a quartic residue exactly when has a root in ; multiplying that root by gives all four distinct roots. Conversely, complete splitting of over gives both a fourth root of and a primitive fourth root of unity, so it also forces .
The polynomial discriminant of is . Hence every odd prime number is unramified in , and the root-splitting criterion is equivalent to its Frobenius automorphism acting trivially on all the roots. Since the roots generate , this is equivalent to the Frobenius automorphism being the identity, or to being a completely split prime of . The Chebotarev density theorem says that the unramified prime numbers with Frobenius conjugacy class have Dirichlet density . Here , so
For a nonempty set , an upper bound in a partially ordered set is a real number such that for every . Its supremum, or least upper bound, is an upper bound with for every upper bound . The least-upper-bound property asserts that every nonempty set of real numbers bounded above has a real supremum.
Let be a bounded, increasing sequence; here increasing allows . Apply the least-upper-bound property to its set of terms and put . Given , the number cannot be an upper bound, so some satisfies . The monotone sequence property then gives
Hence for all . This proves the monotone bounded sequence result, with limit .
For the two series, define their partial sums and . Positivity makes both partial-sum sequences increasing, and termwise comparison gives . Since is a convergent sequence, it is bounded above, and therefore so is . Applying the monotone bounded sequence result already proved shows that converges. By the definition of a convergent series, converges. This is the comparison test for series for positive terms.
The Freiling axiom of symmetry is
The values of are countable subsets of the real numbers, including finite ones. One may require without changing the axiom: apply the displayed version to .
The Generalized continuum hypothesis states
Here is the successor cardinal; equivalently for every ordinal .
The Freiling theorem gives
First assume the Continuum hypothesis and fix a well-order of the real numbers. Define . Each value is countable. For any pair, one index is at most the other, so at least one of or holds. The same holds for , since . This violates the Freiling axiom of symmetry.
Conversely, assume and let assign a countable set to each real. Choose of cardinality . By infinite cardinal arithmetic,
Choose outside this union. Since is countable and is uncountable, choose . Then and , with . This proves the Freiling axiom of symmetry and completes both implications.
A subgroup of a group is a normal subgroup when for every , equivalently . The quotient group has the left cosets as elements, with , identity and inverse . Normality makes this multiplication independent of representatives.
The first isomorphism theorem for groups says that for a group homomorphism , its kernel of a group homomorphism is normal and
The image is taken with the induced group operation; surjectivity onto all of is not required.
For the given upper triangular matrices, take diagonal entries:
The target is a direct product of groups, with multiplication of nonzero real numbers in each coordinate. Indeed the product of two such matrices has diagonal , proving the group homomorphism property. Any pair of nonzero diagonal entries is attained by a diagonal matrix, so is surjective. Its kernel of a group homomorphism consists precisely of the matrices with , namely . Hence
with coordinatewise multiplication, not addition on .
For each positive integer , consider the threshold set . If it were infinite, one could choose recursively a sequence of distinct elements from it. Every arithmetic average of that sequence would be at least , contradicting the assumed limit zero. Hence every is a finite set.
Every positive real number exceeds for some , by the Archimedean property. Therefore
A countable union of countable sets is countable, so . In fact, under the stipulated infinitude, is a countably infinite set. Positivity matters: it ensures that these thresholds cover . This is countability from vanishing averages of distinct sequences; ordinary Cesaro convergence of a sequence of one chosen enumeration would not suffice to control the whole set.
Pullback of a differential form commutes with the exterior derivative, so gives a linear map on de Rham cohomology. Functoriality and imply . Over the real numbers, define the complementary projections
They obey , and . Every cohomology class therefore decomposes as
The first term is fixed and the second negated by . Their intersection is zero, since a class in both equals its own negative. Consequently
This is the eigenspace decomposition of a linear involution. The factor uses the real coefficient field; a corresponding argument over characteristic two would fail. At the level of differential forms, the same averaging projections give representatives of either parity whenever the class has that parity.
Take a transitive model . In , choose a bijection and encode its graph by a set , using a fixed bijection between and . The relative constructible universe can decode , and therefore contains every real number of ; being an inner model of , it has no additional reals.
Models with the same reals have the same first uncountable ordinal, because their reals code exactly the same countable well-orders. If satisfied the Continuum hypothesis, its bijection between and the reals would also belong to , contradicting . This is the construction in relative constructible universe can violate the continuum hypothesis, and it gives
Apply Arzela-Ascoli theorem on . Pointwise boundedness and equicontinuity give a subsequence converging uniformly there. Successively extract subsequences for , and take the diagonal subsequence. It converges uniformly on every closed bounded interval. Its limits on nested intervals agree, so they define on the real numbers; the locally uniform limit of continuous functions is continuous.
Let satisfy for every vector . If there is nothing to prove. Otherwise choose with . For every and every real number ,
so the hypothesis gives . Taking two values of shows that . Since
we obtain . Thus one of the two linear functionals is zero.
Sylvester's law of inertia says that, in a suitable basis, every real quadratic form is
The rank is , and the signature is ; both are independent of the chosen basis.
If , its polar form has image contained in , so . If , the two functionals must be independent and, after taking their sum and difference, is a difference of two squares. Hence . If , then . In every case,
Conversely, this inequality leaves only
up to a linear change of coordinates. These factor respectively as , , and . Therefore
Finally suppose that takes both positive and negative values. Sylvester's law supplies normalized basis vectors
with , , and the spanning the radical. The vectors
are linearly independent and all satisfy . They form the required basis of isotropic vectors.
The deterministic bound
holds for every real number . Therefore
for every , so converges to uniformly on every compact time interval, and hence ucp.