Cartesian Product

🅟 Feb 17, 2026

  🅤 Mar 07, 2026

DEF-CAR. Cartesian Product.

  • The Cartesian product of $X$ and $Y$ is

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

    This is a set:

    \[X\times Y \subseteq \powerset(\powerset(X\cup Y)).\]
  • Notice that, because in general $((x,y),z)\neq (x,(y,z))$, $\times$ is technically not associative. Nevertheless, we write

    \[\begin{align*} X\times Y\times Z &= (X\times Y)\times Z, \\ X\times Y\times Z\times U &= (X\times Y\times Z)\times U, \\ X\times Y\times Z\times U\times V &= (X\times Y\times Z\times U)\times V \end{align*}\]

    and so on.

  • If $n\in\N^+$, we write

    \[X^n = \underbrace{X\times\cdots\times X}_{\text{$n$ times}}.\]

PROP-CAR-EMP.

For any $X$,

\[X\times\varnothing = \varnothing\times X = \varnothing.\]

PROP-CAR-IT.

For any $A$, $B$, $C$ and $D$,

\[(A\cap B)\times(C\cap D) = (A\times C)\cap(B\times D).\]

PROP-CAR-DIST. Distributivities.

For any $A$, $B$ and $C$:

  1. \[A\times(B\cap C) = (A\times B)\cap(A\times C).\]
  2. \[A\times(B\cup C) = (A\times B)\cup(A\times C).\]
  3. \[A\times(B\smallsetminus C) = (A\times B)\smallsetminus(A\times C).\]