Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2022 / ia / Paper 4 / 8F / c / Solution

Suppose first that $|A_n|=1$ for every $n>N$. Then an element of $B$ is determined by its first $N$ coordinates, so $B$ is in bijection withA finite Cartesian product of countable sets is countable by repeated application of the diagonal enumeration in part (b)(i). Hence $B$ is countable.

Conversely, suppose infinitely many factors contain at least two elements. Choose increasing indices $n_1<n_2<\cdots$ and distinct elementsFix one element in every remaining factor. Each binary sequence $\epsilon =({\epsilon }_1,{\epsilon }_2,\dots )$ then defines an element of $B$ by placing $a_j^{{\epsilon }_j}$ in coordinate $n_j$ and the fixed element elsewhere. This map is injective.

The set $\{0,1{\}}^{\mathbb{N}}$ is uncountable by Cantor's diagonal argument: from any proposed list of binary sequences, form a new sequence whose $j$th digit differs from the $j$th digit of the $j$th listed sequence. It is absent from the list. Thus $B$ contains an uncountable subset and cannot be countable.

Therefore

Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.