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Proofs of Existence and Uniqueness

The sentence
There exists an x such that P(x)
is denoted by
displaymath12396
The sentence
There exists exactly one x such that P(x)
is denoted by
displaymath12397

There are two parts to proving a sentence of this form.

  1. Existence Part. Prove that there is an x such that P(x) is true.
  2. Uniqueness Part. Here you must prove that if there are two elements x and z such that P(x) and P(z) are each true, then x=z. Symbolically, tex2html_wrap_inline12422.


droyster@math.uncc.edu