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118 - Paradox and Innity Problem Set 7: The Axiom of Choice

Sabeel Saif Hakim April 12, 2013

Problems:
1. The Axiom of Choice Solution. By the well-ordering theorem, for every non-empty set, , there exists a relation, that well-orders . Therefore, we can dene the function, g ( ) = the -smallest element in . Therefore, for set , each of whose members is a non-empty set, we can dene the function f such that for any , f ( ) = g ( ) by denition. Therefore, the Axiom of Choice holds. 2. The Hat Problem (a) Solution. We partition all possible sequences of hat-distributions into equivalence classes such that any two sequences are in the same equivalence class just in case they disagree in at most nitely many places. We observe that for any two prisoners, Pi and Pj for some i, j Ns.t.i < j , both prisoners are able to see prisoners Pk k > j . Therefore, the two prisoners can potentially disagree in at most j places, namely for prisoners P1 , P2 , . . . , Pj . Therefore, the observed hat-distributions by Pi and Pj are in the same equivalence class. Because this applies to any two prisoners, by transitivity, we realize all prisoners observations belong to the same equivalence class. An equivalence class is a (trivially non-empty) set. Therefore, by the Axiom of Choice, every prisoner is able to choose the same sequence from the equivalence class; each prisoner guesses their hat colour based on this sequence. The actual sequence and the chosen sequence are in the same equivalence class, and therefore, by denition, disagree in at most nitely many places. Only a nite number of prisoners were wrong, so everyones life is spared. (b) Solution. It is unclear which strategy is more favorable for correctly guessing your hat color. Regardless of the actual hat-distribution, we have not specied a particular choice function, so we cannot predict whether or not a particular prisoner will disagree with the actual hat-distribution. Note that for every sequence in the equivalence class where the prisoner is correct, there is another sequence in the equivalence class where the prisoner is incorrect. If it were the case that our choice function, f , was dened such that for each equivalence class, c, f (c) := a hat-distribution in the equivalence class chosen at random, then we would expect both strategies to be correct half the time. 1

3. The Square of Evil (a) The number of white points in the column { x0 , z : z [0, 1]} is the number of points that satisfy x0 e z in the column, ie the size of set S = {z | z [0, 1] x0 e z }. We note that S c = {z | z [0, 1] z e x0 } {x0 } is the complement of S by e -trichotomy. By denition of e , S c consists of at most countably many z . If S were to have countably many elements, then [0, 1] = S S c would have countably many elements, which contradicts the size of the real numbers. Therefore, S has an uncountable number of elements, namely |S | = |[0, 1]|. We note that white points in row { z, y0 : z [0, 1]} are determined by z T = S c {y0 }, and so T has countably many elements. (b) Let a toss of T map to 0 and a toss of H map to 1. An innite sequence of coin-tosses thus results in an innite binary sequence. Each binary sequence, {b0 , b1 , b2 , . . .} can be de-interlaced to produce r1 , r2 [0, 1], with binary representations r1 = 0.b0 b2 b4 . . ., r2 = 0.b1 b3 b5 . . .. This process yields x, y evenly distributed over [0, 1]2 . (c) i. If we take the denition of most of the points to have quality x to mean that the proba, then P (x is white | P (white) > bility of a randomly chosen point to have the quality is more than 1 2 0.5) > 0.5 by denition. However, it may be the case, as it was for the Vitali set, that we cannot verify the fraction of points that are white as the points do not form a line. ii. With similar reasoning, P (x is black | P (black) > 0.5) > 0.5 if it is possible to measure the fraction of points that are black.

(d) It is unclear which is more likely. While every point belongs to a column (meaning P (white) > 0.5) and every point also belongs to a row (meaning P (black ) > 0.5), this seems to be a contradiction, but the intersection is pertinent to a single point, and we are examining P (white|row) and P (black |column). This result seems startling if we were able to sum over all points to determine what portion of the entire square is black or white, but as mentioned previously, this does not seem to be guaranteed. (e) By the Well-Ordering Theorem, there exists a well-ordering of [0, 1]. In order to prove the claim that an evil well-ordering exists, we prove a stronger claim: that there are no wellorderings of [0, 1] such that for some x, there are an uncountable number of y such that y x. Then by the Continuum Hypothesis, there must instead be a countable number. Suppose to the contrary that a well-ordering, 0 exists where x [0, 1] such that the set Yx := {y | y [0, 1] y 0 x} is uncountable. For all x such that x x , y Y, y 0 x by transitivity. ...