# Math Help - Cartesian Product in set theory

1. ## Cartesian Product in set theory

Hi Folks,

I have came across a need and I am not aware if there is such a thing in set theory and if so what is it called.

Mainly I have several sets that I am interested in their cartesian product. But this cartesian product should not be a set of ordered pairs but a set of sets. Basically unordered pairs.

I wonder if this concept is well defined and what is it called.

Thanks.
P.

2. You mean something like:

$
\{ \{x_1,x_2,\ldots\} \mid x_i\in X_i\}
$

I can't think of any neat way to denote this. There's of course the idea of unordered n-tuples from a set A, which is denoted

$
[A]^n
$

But that's different than what you stated as it's n-tuples from 1 set, and not from a collection.

3. The notation you have used is exactly what I need. But will it be true to call it as Cartesian Product?

4. No. Cartesian products are ordered. If you have say

$
[A]^n
$

This is also not a cartesian product. Cartesian products are an ordered n-tuple. The family of unordered n-tuples I don't think has any interesting name, except the set of unordered n-tuples! I never ran accross a reason to have to talk about them the way you did, as from a family of sets. The set of unordered n-tuples from a set is useful many areas, mostly when you talk about colorings (because normally you want to color say pairs of vertices (ie. an edge) rather than a binary relation on vertices (ie. an arc))

5. Indeed not the unordered tuples of a single set but many of them is needed.

For the coloring problem I think what we need is the set of all sets of size 2, which is a memebr of the powerset of the set of vertexes.