1.1 Intervals

The set of real numbers, \(\mathbb {R}\) has 9 intervals. The first 4 kind’s are \([a,b]\hspace {0.2cm}, \hspace {0.2cm} (a,b)\hspace {0.2cm},\hspace {0.2cm} [a,b)\hspace {0.2cm},\hspace {0.2cm}(a,b]\)
The next 4 are described as follows: For each real number \(c\) there are four half-times given as \[ \{x \in \mathbb {R}:\, x \leq c\}\hspace {0.3cm},\hspace {0.3cm} \{x\in \mathbb {R}:\, x < c\}\] \[\{x\in \mathbb {R}:\, x\geq c\}\hspace {0.3cm}, \hspace {0.3cm} \{x\in \mathbb {R}: \, x > c\}\] The 9\(^{\text {th}}\) interval is the set \(\mathbb {R}\) itself.

ℝ0

Note.

1.
\(\{x \in \mathbb {R}: \, x \leq c \} = (-\infty , c]\)
\(\{x\in \mathbb {R}:\, x < c\} = (-\infty , c)\)
\(\{x \in \mathbb {R}:\, x\geq c\} = [c,\infty )\)
\(\{x\in \mathbb {R}: \, x > c\} = (c,\infty )\)

Where for every real number \(x\), \(\, -\infty < x < \infty \) and \(\infty \) is invented symbol, read as infinity \(\, \mathbb {R} = (-\infty , \infty )\).

2.
(a)
for \(a \in \mathbb {R}, \, (a,a) = \emptyset \hspace {0.2cm}\) Similarly, \([a,a) = \emptyset \, , \, (a,a]=\emptyset \)
(b)
\([a,a] = \{a\}\), a singleton set.

All these qualify to be intervals.

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