Cantor set

In mathematics, the Cantor set is a set of

points lying on a single line segment that
has a number of remarkable and deep
properties. It was discovered in 1874 by
Henry John Stephen Smith[1][2][3][4] and
introduced by German mathematician
Georg Cantor in 1883.[5][6]

Through consideration of this set, Cantor

and others helped lay the foundations of
modern point-set topology. Although
Cantor himself dened the set in a
general, abstract way, the most common
modern construction is the Cantor
ternary set, built by removing the middle
thirds of a line segment. Cantor himself
mentioned the ternary construction only
in passing, as an example of a more
general idea, that of a perfect set that is
nowhere dense.

Construction and formula of

the ternary set
The Cantor ternary set is created by
iteratively deleting the open middle third
from a set of line segments. One starts
by deleting the open middle third ( 13 , 23 )
from the interval [0,1], leaving two line
segments: [0, 13 ] [ 23 ,1]. Next, the open
middle third of each of these remaining
segments is deleted, leaving four line
segments: [0, 19 ] [ 29 , 13 ] [ 23 , 79 ] [ 89
,1]. This process is continued ad
innitum, where the nth set is

The Cantor ternary set contains all points

in the interval [0,1] that are not deleted at
any step in this innite process:
The rst six steps of this process are
illustrated below.

Using the idea of self-similar

transformations,

and
the explicit closed formulas for the
Cantor set are[7]

or
This process of removing middle thirds is
a simple example of a nite subdivision
rule. The Cantor ternary set is an
example of a fractal string.

In arithmetical terms, the Cantor set

consists of all real numbers on the unit
interval that are expressible as a ternary
(base 3) fraction using only the digits 0
and 2. As the above diagram illustrates,
each point in the Cantor set is uniquely
located by a path through an innitely
deep binary tree, where the path turns left
or right at each level according to which
side of a deleted segment the point lies
on. Representing each left turn with 0
and each right turn with 2 yields the
ternary fraction for a point. It further
follows that the Cantor set has a bijective
mapping with the set of innite binary
sequences.

Composition
Since the Cantor set is dened as the set
of points not excluded, the proportion
(i.e., measure) of the unit interval
remaining can be found by total length
removed. This total is the geometric
progression

So that the proportion left is 1 1 = 0.

This calculation suggests that the Cantor

set cannot contain any interval of non-
zero length. It may seem surprising that
there should be anything leftafter all,
the sum of the lengths of the removed
intervals is equal to the length of the
original interval. However, a closer look
at the process reveals that there must be
something left, since removing the
"middle third" of each interval involved
removing open sets (sets that do not
include their endpoints). So removing the
line segment (1/3,2/3) from the original
interval [0,1] leaves behind the points 1/3
and 2/3. Subsequent steps do not remove
these (or other) endpoints, since the
intervals removed are always internal to
the intervals remaining. So the Cantor set
is not empty, and in fact contains an
uncountably innite number of points (as
follows from the above description in
terms of paths in an innite binary tree).

It may appear that only the endpoints of

the construction segments are left, but
that is not the case either. The number
1/4, for example, has the unique ternary
form 0.020202. It is in the bottom third,
and the top ninth of that third, and the
bottom twenty-seventh of that ninth, and
so on. Since it is never in one of the
middle segments, it is never removed.
Yet it is also not an endpoint of any
middle segment, because it is not a
multiple of any power of 1/3.[8] In the
sense of cardinality, most members of
the Cantor set are not endpoints of
deleted intervals. The construction steps,
which are countable, each introduce a
nite number of endpoints. Therefore the
endpoints are also countable, while the
whole Cantor set is not.

Properties
Cardinality

It can be shown that there are as many

points left behind in this process as there
were to begin with, and that therefore, the
Cantor set is uncountable. To see this,
we show that there is a function f from
the Cantor set to the closed interval
[0,1] that is surjective (i.e. f maps from
onto [0,1]) so that the cardinality of is
no less than that of [0,1]. Since is a
subset of [0,1], its cardinality is also no
greater, so the two cardinalities must in
fact be equal, by the CantorBernstein
Schroeder theorem.
To construct this function, consider the
points in the [0,1] interval in terms of
base 3 (or ternary) notation. Recall that
some points admit more than one
representation in this notation, as for
example 1/3, that can be written as 0.13
but also as 0.022222...3, and 2/3, that can
be written as 0.23 but also as 0.12222...3.
(This alternative recurring representation
of a number with a terminating numeral
occurs in any positional system.) When
we remove the middle third, this contains
the numbers with ternary numerals of the
form 0.1xxxxx...3 where xxxxx...3 is
strictly between 00000...3 and 22222...3.
So the numbers remaining after the rst
step consist of
 Numbers of the form 0.0xxxxx...3
(including 0.022222...3 = 1/3)
Numbers of the form 0.2xxxxx...3
(including 0.222222...3 = 1)

This can be summarized by saying that

those numbers that admit a ternary
representation such that the rst digit
after the decimal point is not 1 are the
ones remaining after the rst step.

The second step removes numbers of

the form 0.01xxxx...3 and 0.21xxxx...3,
and (with appropriate care for the
endpoints) it can be concluded that the
remaining numbers are those with a
ternary numeral where neither of the rst
two digits is 1. Continuing in this way, for
a number not to be excluded at step n, it
must have a ternary representation
whose nth digit is not 1. For a number to
be in the Cantor set, it must not be
excluded at any step, it must admit a
numeral representation consisting
entirely of 0s and 2s. It is worth
emphasising that numbers like 1, 1/3 =
0.13 and 7/9 = 0.213 are in the Cantor set,
as they have ternary numerals consisting
entirely of 0s and 2s: 1 = 0.2222...3, 1/3 =
0.022222...3 and 7/9 = 0.2022222...3. So
while a number in may have either a
terminating or a recurring ternary
numeral, one of its representations will
consist entirely of 0s and 2s.
The function from to [0,1] is dened by
taking the numeral that does consist
entirely of 0s and 2s, replacing all the 2s
by 1s, and interpreting the sequence as a
binary representation of a real number. In
a formula,

For any number y in [0,1], its binary

representation can be translated into a
ternary representation of a number x in
by replacing all the 1s by 2s. With this,
f(x) = y so that y is in the range of f. For
instance if y = 3/5 = 0.100110011001...2,
we write x = 0.200220022002...3 = 7/10.
Consequently, f is surjective; however, f is
not injective interestingly enough, the
values for which f(x) coincides are those
at opposing ends of one of the middle
thirds removed. For instance, 7/9 =
0.2022222...3 and 8/9 = 0.2200000...3 so
f(7/9) = 0.101111...2 = 0.112 = f(8/9).

So there are as many points in the Cantor

set as there are in [0,1], and the Cantor
set is uncountable (see Cantor's diagonal
argument). However, the set of endpoints
of the removed intervals is countable, so
there must be uncountably many
numbers in the Cantor set which are not
interval endpoints. As noted above, one
example of such a number is , which
can be written as 0.02020202020...3 in
ternary notation. In fact, given any
, there exist such
that . This was rst
demonstrated by Steinhaus in 1917, who
proved, via a geometric argument, the
equivalent assertion that

for every .[9] Since this

construction provides an injection from
to , we have
as an
immediate corollary. Assuming that
for any innite set (a
statement shown to be equivalent to the
axiom of choice by Tarski), this provides
another demonstration that .
The Cantor set contains as many points
as the interval from which it is taken, yet
itself contains no interval of nonzero
length. The irrational numbers have the
same property, but the Cantor set has the
additional property of being closed, so it
is not even dense in any interval, unlike
the irrational numbers which are dense in
every interval.

It has been conjectured that all algebraic

irrational numbers are normal. Since
members of the Cantor set are not
normal, this would imply that all
members of the Cantor set are either
rational or transcendental.
Self-similarity

The Cantor set is the prototype of a

fractal. It is self-similar, because it is
equal to two copies of itself, if each copy
is shrunk by a factor of 3 and translated.
More precisely, there are two functions,
the left and right self-similarity
transformations, and
, which leave the
Cantor set invariant up to
homeomorphism:

Repeated iteration of and can be

visualized as an innite binary tree. That
is, at each node of the tree, one may
consider the subtree to the left or to the
right. Taking the set together
with function composition forms a
monoid, the dyadic monoid.

The automorphisms of the binary tree are

its hyperbolic rotations, and are given by
the modular group. Thus, the Cantor set
is a homogeneous space in the sense
that for any two points and in the
Cantor set , there exists a
homeomorphism with
. These homeomorphisms can
be expressed explicitly, as Mbius
transformations.

Conservation law
It has been found that some form of
conservation law is always responsible
behind scaling and self-similarity. In the
case of Cantor set it can be seen that the
th moment (where
is the fractal
dimension) of all the surviving intervals
at any stage of the construction process
is equal to constant which is equal to one
in the case of Cantor set [10][11] . We know
that there are intervals of size
present in the system at the th
step of its construction. Then if we level
the surviving intervals as
then the th moment
is since
.
The Hausdorff dimension of the Cantor
set is equal to ln(2)/ln(3)0.631.

The Hausdorff dimension

theorem

An essential property of Cantor sets is

giving sufciency of fractals for any
given Hausdorff dimension :

Theorem. For any given there are

uncountable fractals with Hausdorff
dimension in n-dimensional Euclidean
space [12]

Topological and analytical

properties
Although "the" Cantor set typically refers
to the original, middle-thirds Cantor
described above, topologists often talk
about "a" Cantor set, which means any
topological space that is homeomorphic
(topologically equivalent) to it.

As the above summation argument

shows, the Cantor set is uncountable but
has Lebesgue measure 0. Since the
Cantor set is the complement of a union
of open sets, it itself is a closed subset
of the reals, and therefore a complete
metric space. Since it is also totally
bounded, the HeineBorel theorem says
that it must be compact.
For any point in the Cantor set and any
arbitrarily small neighborhood of the
point, there is some other number with a
ternary numeral of only 0s and 2s, as well
as numbers whose ternary numerals
contain 1s. Hence, every point in the
Cantor set is an accumulation point (also
called a cluster point or limit point) of the
Cantor set, but none is an interior point. A
closed set in which every point is an
accumulation point is also called a
perfect set in topology, while a closed
subset of the interval with no interior
points is nowhere dense in the interval.

Every point of the Cantor set is also an

accumulation point of the complement
of the Cantor set.

For any two points in the Cantor set,

there will be some ternary digit where
they differ one will have 0 and the
other 2. By splitting the Cantor set into
"halves" depending on the value of this
digit, one obtains a partition of the
Cantor set into two closed sets that
separate the original two points. In the
relative topology on the Cantor set, the
points have been separated by a clopen
set. Consequently, the Cantor set is
totally disconnected. As a compact
totally disconnected Hausdorff space,
the Cantor set is an example of a Stone
space.
As a topological space, the Cantor set is
naturally homeomorphic to the product
of countably many copies of the space
, where each copy carries the
discrete topology. This is the space of all
sequences in two digits

which can also be identied with the set

of 2-adic integers. The basis for the open
sets of the product topology are cylinder
sets; the homeomorphism maps these to
the subspace topology that the Cantor
set inherits from the natural topology on
the real number line. This
characterization of the Cantor space as a
product of compact spaces gives a
second proof that Cantor space is
compact, via Tychonoff's theorem.

From the above characterization, the

Cantor set is homeomorphic to the p-adic
integers, and, if one point is removed
from it, to the p-adic numbers.

The Cantor set is a subset of the reals,

which are a metric space with respect to
the ordinary distance metric; therefore
the Cantor set itself is a metric space, by
using that same metric. Alternatively, one
can use the p-adic metric on : given
two sequences , the
distance between them is
, where is the
smallest index such that ; if
there is no such index, then the two
sequences are the same, and one denes
the distance to be zero. These two
metrics generate the same topology on
the Cantor set.

We have seen above that the Cantor set

is a totally disconnected perfect compact
metric space. Indeed, in a sense it is the
only one: every nonempty totally
disconnected perfect compact metric
space is homeomorphic to the Cantor
set. See Cantor space for more on
spaces homeomorphic to the Cantor set.

The Cantor set is sometimes regarded as

"universal" in the category of compact
metric spaces, since any compact metric
space is a continuous image of the
Cantor set; however this construction is
not unique and so the Cantor set is not
universal in the precise categorical
sense. The "universal" property has
important applications in functional
analysis, where it is sometimes known as
the representation theorem for compact
metric spaces.[13]

For any integer q 2, the topology on the

group G=Zq (the countable direct sum)
is discrete. Although the Pontrjagin dual
is also Zq, the topology of is
compact. One can see that is totally
disconnected and perfect - thus it is
homeomorphic to the Cantor set. It is
easiest to write out the homeomorphism
explicitly in the case q=2. (See Rudin
1962 p 40.)

Measure and probability

The Cantor set can be seen as the

compact group of binary sequences, and
as such, it is endowed with a natural
Haar measure. When normalized so that
the measure of the set is 1, it is a model
of an innite sequence of coin tosses.
Furthermore, one can show that the
usual Lebesgue measure on the interval
is an image of the Haar measure on the
Cantor set, while the natural injection into
the ternary set is a canonical example of
a singular measure. It can also be shown
that the Haar measure is an image of any
probability, making the Cantor set a
universal probability space in some
ways.

In Lebesgue measure theory, the Cantor

set is an example of a set which is
uncountable and has zero measure.[14]

Cantor numbers

If we dene a Cantor number as a

member of the Cantor set, then[15]

(1) Every real number in [0, 2] is the

sum of two Cantor numbers.
 (2) Between any two Cantor numbers
there is a number that is not a Cantor
number.

Variants
SmithVolterraCantor set

Instead of repeatedly removing the

middle third of every piece as in the
Cantor set, we could also keep removing
any other xed percentage (other than
0% and 100%) from the middle. In the
case where the middle 8/10 of the interval
is removed, we get a remarkably
accessible case the set consists of all
numbers in [0,1] that can be written as a
decimal consisting entirely of 0s and 9s.
By removing progressively smaller
percentages of the remaining pieces in
every step, one can also construct sets
homeomorphic to the Cantor set that
have positive Lebesgue measure, while
still being nowhere dense. See Smith
VolterraCantor set for an example.

Stochastic Cantor set

Natural fractals do not appear in a blink

of an eye rather through evolution in time
accompanied by some randomness
since nature likes to enjoy freedom of
choice. One can modify the construction
of the Cantor set by dividing randomly
instead of equally. Besides, to
incorporate time we can divide only one
of the available intervals at each step
instead of dividing all the available
intervals. In the case of stochastic triadic
Cantor set the resulting process can be
described by the following rate
equation[16][17]

and for the stochastic dyadic Cantor

set[18]

where is the number of

intervals of size between and .
In the case of triadic Cantor set the
fractal dimension is which is
less than its deterministic counterpart
. In the case of stochastic dyadic
Cantor set the fractal dimension is
which is again less than that of its
deterministic counterpart
. In the case of
stochastic dyadic Cantor set the solution
for exhibits dynamic scaling as
its solution in the long-time limit is
where the fractal
dimension of the stochastic dyadic
Cantor set . In either case, like
triadic Cantor set, the th moment (
) of
stochastic triadic and dyadic Cantor set
too are conserved quantities.

Cantor dust

Cantor dust is a multi-dimensional

version of the Cantor set. It can be
formed by taking a nite Cartesian
product of the Cantor set with itself,
making it a Cantor space. Like the Cantor
set, Cantor dust has zero measure.[19]

Cantor cubes recursion progression towards Cantor

dust

Cantor dust (2D) Cantor dust (3D)

A different 2D analogue of the Cantor set

is the Sierpinski carpet, where a square is
divided up into nine smaller squares, and
the middle one removed. The remaining
squares are then further divided into nine
each and the middle removed, and so on
ad innitum.[20] The 3D analogue of this
is the Menger sponge.

Historical remarks

Column capital with pattern like Cantor set.

Engraving of Ile de Philae from Description d'Egypte
by Jean-Baptiste Prosper Jollois and Edouard
Devilliers, Imprimerie Imperiale, Paris, 1809-1828

Cantor himself dened the set in a

general, abstract way, and mentioned the
ternary construction only in passing, as
an example of a more general idea, that
of a perfect set that is nowhere dense.
The original paper provides several
different constructions of the abstract
concept.

This set would have been considered

abstract at the time when Cantor devised
it. Cantor himself was led to it by
practical concerns about the set of
points where a trigonometric series
might fail to converge. The discovery did
much to set him on the course for
developing an abstract, general theory of
innite sets.
A column capital from the Ancient
Egyptian site of the island of Philae
carries a pattern which resembles the
Cantor set. Cantor may have seen the
image, as his cousin was an
Egyptologist.[21]

See also
Hexagrams (I Ching)
Cantor function
Cantor cube
Antoine's necklace
Koch snowake
KnasterKuratowski fan
 List of fractals by Hausdorff
dimension
Moserde Bruijn sequence

Notes
1. Henry J.S. Smith (1874) On the
integration of discontinuous functions.
Proceedings of the London Mathematical
Society, Series 1, vol. 6, pages 140153.
2. The Cantor set was also discovered
by Paul du Bois-Reymond (18311889).
See footnote on page 128 of: Paul du
Bois-Reymond (1880) Der Beweis des
Fundamentalsatzes der
Integralrechnung , Mathematische
Annalen, vol. 16, pages 115128. The
Cantor set was also discovered in 1881
by Vito Volterra (18601940). See: Vito
Volterra (1881) Alcune osservazioni sulle
funzioni punteggiate discontinue [Some
observations on point-wise discontinuous
functions], Giornale di Matematiche, vol.
19, pages 7686.
3. Jos Ferreirs, Labyrinth of Thought: A
History of Set Theory and Its Role in
Modern Mathematics (Basel, Switzerland:
Birkhuser Verlag, 1999), pages 162165.
4. Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice?: The
New Mathematics of Chaos
5. Georg Cantor (1883) "ber unendliche,
lineare Punktmannigfaltigkeiten V " [On
innite, linear point-manifolds (sets), Part
5], Mathematische Annalen, vol. 21, pages
545591.
6. H.-O. Peitgen, H. Jrgens, and D. Saupe,
Chaos and Fractals: New Frontiers of
Science 2nd ed. (N.Y., N.Y.: Springer
Verlag, 2004), page 65.
7. Mohsen Soltanifar, A Different
Description of A Family of Middle-a
Cantor Sets, American Journal of
Undergraduate Research, Vol 5, No 2, pp
912, 2006
8. belcastro, sarah-marie; Green, Michael
(January 2001), "The Cantor set contains
? Really?", The College Mathematics
Journal, 32 (1): 55, doi:10.2307/2687224
9. Carothers, N. L. (2000). Real Analysis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
pp.3132. ISBN978-0-521-69624-1.
10. P. L. Krapivsky and E. Ben-Naim,
Multiscaling in Stochastic Fractals Phys.
Lett. A 196 (1994) 168.
11. M. K. Hassan and G. J. Rodgers,
Models of fragmentation and stochastic
fractals Physics Letters A 208 95 (1995).
12. Mohsen Soltanifar, On A Sequence of
Cantor Fractals, Rose Hulman
Undergraduate Mathematics Journal, Vol
7, No 1, paper 9, 2006
13. Stephen Willard, General Topology,
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
1968.
14. the Cantor set is an uncountable set
with zero measure
15. Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws, Manfred
Schroeder, Dover, 1991, p.164-165.
16. P. L. Krapivsky and E. Ben-Naim,
Multiscaling in Stochastic Fractals Phys.
Lett. A 196 (1994) 168.
17. M. K. Hassan and G. J. Rodgers,
Models of fragmentation and stochastic
fractals Physics Letters A 208 95 (1995).
18. M. K. Hassan, N. I. Pavel, R. K. Pandit
and J. Kurths, Dyadic Cantor set and its
kinetic and stochastic counterpart Chaos,
Solitons & Fractals 60 31-39 (2014)
19. Helmberg, Gilbert (2007). Getting
Acquainted With Fractals . Walter de
Gruyter. p.46. ISBN978-3-11-019092-2.
20. Helmberg, Gilbert (2007). Getting
Acquainted With Fractals . Walter de
Gruyter. p.48. ISBN978-3-11-019092-2.
21. Lumpkin, Beatrice (1 January 1997).
Geometry Activities from Many Cultures .
Walch Publishing. p.17. ISBN978-0-8251-
3285-8. Napoleon's Expedition brought
this picture to Europe in their report,
Description de L'Egypte. Notice the
startling resemblance to the Cantor set
diagram. ... Did George Cantor see
pictures of the Egyptian columns before
he conceived the set...? We don't known,
but it is a possibility, because Cantor's
cousin was a student of Egyptology.
References
Steen, Lynn Arthur; Seebach, J. Arthur
Jr. (1995) [1978], Counterexamples in
Topology (Dover reprint of 1978 ed.),
Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag,
ISBN978-0-486-68735-3, MR507446
(See example 29).
Gary L. Wise and Eric B. Hall,
Counterexamples in Probability and Real
Analysis. Oxford University Press, New
York 1993. ISBN0-19-507068-2. (See
chapter 1).
K. J. Falconer, Geometry of Fractal
Sets , Cambridge University Press 1985.
P. Mattila, Geometry of Sets and
Measures in Euclidean Space, Cambridge
University Press, 1995.
P. Mattila, Fourier Analysis and
Hausdorff Dimension, Cambridge
University Press, 2015.
A. Zygmund, Trigonometric Series I
and II, Cambridge University Press, 1958.

External links
Hazewinkel, Michiel, ed. (2001) [1994],
"Cantor set" , Encyclopedia of
Mathematics, Springer Science+Business
Media B.V. / Kluwer Academic
Publishers, ISBN978-1-55608-010-4
Cantor Sets and Cantor Set and
Function at cut-the-knot
Cantor Set (PRIME)
 Cantor Dust Demo Program

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