Cantorternary Set

Cantorternary Set

 

a perfect set of points on a line that does not contain a single interval; it was constructed by G. Cantor in 1883. It is obtained by first removing the middle third (1/3, 2/3) from the closed interval [0, 1], then removing the middle thirds (1/9, 2/9) and (7/9, 8/9) of the remaining closed intervals[0, 1/3] and [2/3, 1], and so on. The Cantor ternary set has the power of the continuum. The set may be defined arithmetically as the totality of ternary fractions 0. a1an …, where each of the digits a, 1a2, …, an, … is 0 or 2. The Cantor ternary set plays an important role in various problems of mathematics (in topology and in the theory of functions of a real variable).