axiom of power set

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The axiom of power set is an axiom of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory which postulates that for any set $X$ there exists a set $\mathcal{P}(X)$ , called the power set of $X$ , consisting of all subsets of $X$ . In symbols, it reads:

\forall X\exists\mathcal{P}(X)\forall u(u\in\mathcal{P}(X)\leftrightarrow u% \subseteq X).

In the above, $u\subseteq X$ is defined as $\forall z(z\in u\rightarrow z\in X)$ . By the extensionality axiom, the set $\mathcal{P}(X)$ is unique.

The Power Set Axiom allows us to define the Cartesian product of two sets $X$ and $Y$ :

X\times Y=\{(x,y):x\in X\land y\in Y\}.

The Cartesian product is a set since

X\times Y\subseteq\mathcal{P}(\mathcal{P}(X\cup Y)).

We may define the Cartesian product of any finite collection of sets recursively:

X_{1}\times\cdots\times X_{n}=(X_{1}\times\cdots\times X_{{n-1}})\times X_{n}.

Synonym:

power set axiom, powerset axiom, axiom of powerset

Type of Math Object:

Axiom

Major Section:

Reference