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If \(A\) has \(a\) elements and \(B\) has \(b\) elements, how many elements are in $A \times B$ ? Explain your answer.

Short Answer

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The number of elements in the Cartesian product \(A \times B\) is equal to \(a \times b\), where \(a\) is the number of elements in A and \(b\) is the number of elements in B. This is because each element in A can be paired with each element in B, resulting in a total of \(a \times b\) ordered pairs.
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Step 1: Understanding Cartesian Product

A Cartesian product of two sets A and B, denoted as \(A \times B\), is the set of all possible ordered pairs where the first element is from A and the second element is from B. The Cartesian product of two sets results in a new set containing all possible combinations of elements from the two sets.

Step 2: Counting Elements in A

Set A has \(a\) elements. For each element in A, there will be an ordered pair formed with the elements of B.

Step 3: Counting Elements in B

Set B has \(b\) elements. For each element in B, there will be an ordered pair formed with the elements of A.

Step 4: Counting Elements in the Cartesian Product

Since there are \(a\) elements in A and \(b\) elements in B, there will be \(a \times b\) combinations for the ordered pairs. Hence the number of elements in the Cartesian product \(A \times B\) is equal to \(a \times b\).

Step 5: Result

The Cartesian product \(A \times B\) has \(a \times b\) elements, where \(a\) is the number of elements in A and \(b\) is the number of elements in B.

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