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# Tag Archives: Rational number

## On the Rope Boys are Tau and Girls Are Pi

Cartoon of

Today, in the morning when I was teaching my sister about numbers, viz. rational numbers and irrational numbers, this one was created. My sister, Kavita Tiwari, is in Vth grade and mainly study Math ,Science and Social Science. On last wednesday we visited a Circus show. We all liked that very much. And she became a fan of a girl acrobat. She always says that female acrobats are far better than male acrobats in circus-shows having rope-walk show. Male acrobats look like they are about to fall, but female ones are frank in this work. When I discussed with her about some constants like $\pi, \, \tau, \, e$ etc., she asked me to stop for a while, and started making this cartoon. Her thoughts were mingled with math. I was surprized by the meaning this cartoon had. I really liked her stuff, and thought to post it on the web.

Notes:

• I have searched everywhere, but couldn’t find same topic/idea like this.
• For those who don’t know:

[ My english is also weaker than her. ]

## Dedekind’s Theory of Real Numbers

Image via Wikipedia

# Intro

Let $\mathbf{Q}$ be the set of rational numbers. It is well known that $\mathbf{Q}$ is an ordered field and also the set $\mathbf{Q}$ is equipped with a relation called “less than” which is an order relation. Between two rational numbers there exists infinite number of elements of $\mathbf{Q}$. Thus the system of rational numbers seems to be dense and so apparently complete. But it is quite easy to show that there exist some numbers (?) (e.g., ${\sqrt{2}, \sqrt{3} \ldots}$ etc.) which are not rational. For example, let we have to prove that $\sqrt{2}$ is not a rational number or in other words, there exist no rational number whose square is 2. To do that if possible, purpose that $\sqrt{2}$ is a rational number. Then according to the definition of rational numbers $\sqrt{2}=\dfrac{p}{q}$, where p & q are relatively prime integers. Hence, ${\left(\sqrt{2}\right)}^2=p^2/q^2$ or $p^2=2q^2$. This implies that p is even. Let $p=2m$, then $(2m)^2=2q^2$ or $q^2=2m^2$. Thus $q$ is also even if 2 is rational. But since both are even, they are not relatively prime, which is a contradiction. Hence $\sqrt{2}$ is not a rational number and the proof is complete. Similarly we can prove that why other irrational numbers are not rational. From this proof, it is clear that the set $\mathbf{Q}$ is not complete and dense and that there are some gaps between the rational numbers in form of irrational numbers. This remark shows the necessity of forming a more comprehensive system of numbers other that the system of rational number. The elements of this extended set will be called a real number. The following three approaches have been made for defining a real number.

1. Dedekind’s Theory
2. Cantor’s Theory
3. Method of Decimal Representation

The method known as Dedekind’s Theory will be discussed in this not, which is due to R. Dedekind (1831-1916). To discuss this theory we need the following definitions:

Rational number A number which can be represented as $\dfrac{p}{q}$ where p is an integer and q is a non-zero integer i.e., $p \in \mathbf{Z}$ and $q \in \mathbf{Z} \setminus \{0\}$ and p and q are
relatively prime as their greatest common divisor is 1, i.e., $\left(p,q\right) =1$.

Ordered Field: Here, $\mathbf{Q}$ is, an algebraic structure on which the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication & division by a non-zero number can be carried out.

Least or Smallest Element: Let $A \subseteq Q$ and $a \in Q$. Then $a$ is said to be a least element of $A$ if (i) $a \in A$ and (ii) $a \le x$ for every $x \in A$.

Greatest or Largest Element: Let $A \subseteq Q$ and $b \in Q$. Then $b$ is said to be a least element of $A$ if (i) $b \in A$ and (ii) $x \le b$ for every $x \in A$.

## Dedekind’s Section (Cut) of the Set of All the Rational Numbers

Since the set of rational numbers is an ordered field, we may consider the rational numbers to be arranged in order on straight line from left to right. Now if we cut this line by some point $P$, then the set of rational numbers is divided into two classes $L$ and $U$. The rational numbers on the left, i.e. the rational numbers less than the number corresponding to the point of cut $P$ are all in $L$ and the rational numbers on the right, i.e. The rational number greater than the point are all in $U$. If the point $P$ is not a rational number then every rational number either belongs to $L$ or $U$. But if $P$ is a rational number, then it may be considered as an element of $U$.

Def.

### Real Numbers:

Let $L \subset \mathbf{Q}$ satisfying the following conditions:

1. $L$ is non-empty proper subset of $\mathbf{Q}$.
2. $a, b \in \mathbf{Q}$ , $a < b$ and $b \in L$ then this implies that $a \in L$.
3. $L$ doesn’t have a greatest element.

Let $U=\mathbf{Q}-L$. Then the ordered pair $< L,U >$ is called a section or a cut of the set of rational numbers. This section of the set of rational numbers is called a real number.

Notation: The set of real numbers $\alpha, \beta, \gamma, \ldots$ is denote by $\mathbf{R}$.

Let $\alpha = \langle L,U \rangle$ then $L$ and $U$ are called Lower and Upper Class of $\alpha$ respectively. These classes will be denoted by $L(\alpha)$ and $U(\alpha)$ respectively.