Countable Set equals Range of Sequence

Theorem
Let $S$ be a set.

Then $S$ is countable there exists a sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ where $N$ is a subset of $\N$ such that $S$ equals the range of $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$.

Necessary Condition
Assume that $S$ is countable.

We need to prove that there exists a sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$, $N \subseteq \N$, such that $S$ equals the range of $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$.

The range of $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ is defined as $\set {s_i: i \in N}$.


 * Case 1. $S$ is empty.

Empty Set is Countable confirms that $S$ is countable.

Define the empty sequence as $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in \O}$.

The range of the empty sequence is $\set {s_i: i \in \O} = \O$.

$S$ equals the range of the empty sequence as $S$ equals $\O$.

This finishes the argument for this case.


 * Case $2$. $S$ is finite and not empty.

Let $n \in \N_{>0}$ be the number of elements of $S$.

Define a sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{1 \mathop \le \mathop i \mathop \le \mathop n}$ by going through every element of S:


 * Let $s_1$ be any element of $S$.


 * Let $s_2$ be any element of $S \setminus \set {s_1}$.




 * Let $s_n$ be the single element of $S \setminus \set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n - 1}$.

From this definition follows that every element of $S$ equals some $s_i$, $1 \le i \le n$.

So, $S \subseteq \set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n}$.

Every number $s_i$, $1 \le i \le n$, equals some element of $S$.

So, $\set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n} \subseteq S$.

Accordingly, $S = \set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n}$.

By the definition of range, $\set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n}$ equals the range of the sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{1 \mathop \le \mathop i \mathop \le \mathop n}$.

Therefore, $S$ equals the range of $\sequence {s_i}_{1 \mathop \le \mathop i \mathop \le \mathop n}$.

This finishes the proof for case 2.


 * Case $3$. $S$ is infinite.

Since $S$ is countable and infinite, $S$ is countably infinite.

By the definition of countably infinite, $S$ can be written:


 * $\set {t_0, t_1, \ldots, t_n, \ldots}$

where $n$ runs over all the natural numbers, $\N$.

In other words, we have:


 * $S = \set {t_i: i \in \N}$

We intend to produce a sequence from $S$.

We start with the empty sequence.

Using $\N$, the set to which $S$ is equivalent, we put all the elements of $S$ one by one into the sequence.

The result is $\sequence {t_i}_{i \mathop \in \N}$.

The range of $\sequence {t_i}_{i \mathop \in \N}$ is $\set {t_i: i \in \N}$, which equals $S$.

In other words, $S$ is the range of the sequence $\sequence {t_i}_{i \mathop \in \N}$.

This finishes the necessary part of the proof.

Sufficient Condition
Assume that there exists a sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ where $N$ is a subset of $\N$ such that $S$ equals the range of that sequence.

We need to prove that $S$ is countable.


 * Case 1. $S$ is finite.

By the definition of countable $S$ is countable.


 * Case 2. $S$ is infinite.

We know that $S$ equals the range of the sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ where $N$ is an infinite subset of $\N$.

The range of $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ is defined as $\set {s_i: i \in N}$, so we have


 * $S = \set {s_i: i \in N}$

We need to prove that $S$ is countably infinite.

That a set is countably infinite, means that it is of the form:


 * $\set {t_0, t_1, \ldots, t_n, \ldots}$

where $n$ runs over all the natural numbers, $\N$.

Accordingly, we need to show that a set $\set {t_i: i \in \N}$ exists such that:


 * $S = \set {t_i: i \in \N}$

Assume that $N = \N$.

Then $S$ is countably infinite by definition.

The only other alternative is $N \subset \N$.

Define:


 * $t_i = s_i$ for every $i$ in $N$


 * $t_i = s_1$ for every $i$ in $\N \setminus N$

Thus, $t_i$ is defined for every $i$ in $\N$.

We have:

All in all, $S = \set {t_i: i \in \N}$.

Therefore, $S$ is countably infinite and thus countable.

This finishes the last part of the proof.