business mathematics

A set is a well defined collection objects. The objects of the set are called its elements. Sets are usually denoted by capital letters and the elements of the set are denoted by lower case. If an element x belongs to set A, it is denoted by x Є A. If x is not an element of A, it is denoted by striped(/)Є A.

A set, in general is represented in two forms:

1) In this form, a set is described by actually listing out all the elements. For example, the set of all odd natural numbers less than 10 is represented by {1,3,5,7,9}.

2) In this form, a set is described by a characterizing property. For example, the set of all odd natural numbers less than 10 is represented by {x Є N | x < 10 and x is odd}. The symbol | is read as “ such that.”