Problem

Source: Iran 3rd round 2014 - final exam problem 1

Tags: function, algebra unsolved, algebra



In each of (a) to (d) you have to find a strictly increasing surjective function from A to B or prove that there doesn't exist any. (a) $A=\{x|x\in \mathbb{Q},x\leq \sqrt{2}\}$ and $B=\{x|x\in \mathbb{Q},x\leq \sqrt{3}\}$ (b) $A=\mathbb{Q}$ and $B=\mathbb{Q}\cup \{\pi \} $ In (c) and (d) we say $(x,y)>(z,t)$ where $x,y,z,t \in \mathbb{R}$ , whenever $x>z$ or $x=z$ and $y>t$. (c) $A=\mathbb{R}$ and $B=\mathbb{R}^2$ (d) $X=\{2^{-x}| x\in \mathbb{N}\}$ , then $A=X \times (X\cup \{0\})$ and $B=(X \cup \{ 0 \}) \times X$ (e) If $A,B \subset \mathbb{R}$ , such that there exists a surjective non-decreasing function from $A$ to $B$ and a surjective non-decreasing function from $B$ to $A$ , does there exist a surjective strictly increasing function from $B$ to $A$? Time allowed for this problem was 2 hours.