Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Venn Diagram
Venn Diagram
Venn Diagram
1. Union of sets
2. Intersection of sets
3. Difference of sets
In mathematics, we perform certain operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. These
operators generally take two or more operands and give a result based on the operation performed.
Similarly, in set theory usually, certain operations are performed on two or more sets to get a new
set of elements based on the operation performed. The union and intersection of sets represent the
number of elements carried by the operation and executing the result of a collective set. In the case
of union, all the elements are included in the result but in the case of the intersection, only the
common elements are considered.
Sometimes, students also get confused with the union and universal set. Union of two or more sets
is an operation performed on them, which results in a collection of elements present in both the sets,
whereas a universal set is itself a set, which contains all the elements of other sets, including its own
elements.
In the upcoming discussions, you will learn about the union operation on sets thoroughly.
A Union B Formula
The union of set A and set B is equal to the set containing all the elements in A and B. This is
represented as A U B and can be read as “A union B” or “A or B”.
A union B formula is generally used to calculate the unions of set A and set B. The formula for A
union B indicates that each element present in A or B (leaving duplicates) is present in A U B. From
the definition of the union of sets, the formula for A union B formula can be written as:
A U B = {x : x ∈ A or x ∈ B}
Solved Examples
Example 1:
Let U be a universal set consisting of all the natural numbers until 20 and set A and B be a
subset of U defined as A = {2, 5, 9, 15, 19} and B = {8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17}. Find A ∪ B.
Solution:
Given,
U = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20}
A = {2, 5, 9, 15, 19}
B = {8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17} A ∪ B = {2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17, 19}
This can be represented using the following Venn diagram:
Example 2:
If set A contains 13 elements, set B contains 8 elements and the intersection of these two
sets contains 5 elements, then find the number of elements in A union B.
Solution:
Given,
Number of elements in set A = n(A) = 13
Number of elements in set B = n(B) = 8
Number of elements in A intersection B = n(A ∩ B) = 5
We know that,
n(A U B) = n(A) + n(B) – n(A ∩ B)
= 13 + 8 – 5
= 21 – 5
= 16
Therefore, the number of elements in A union B = n(A U B) = 16.