Cardinality of Power Sets

The cardinality of the power set, |P (S)| for any finite set S = {s1 , s2 , s3 , ...sn } with
|S| = n is equal to the nth power of 2, where n ∈ N. Thus we write whe

|P (S)| = 2n

Proof:
Let S be the set of n elements S = {s1 , s2 , s3 , ...sn } where n ∈ N. Then the power set P (S)
of S will contain sets varying from 0 to n elements. Then let us write

P (S) = {∅, c1 , c2 , c3 ...cn }

where ck , 1 < k < n refers to the subsets of P (S) such that each collection ck contains all
elements of |P (S)| which are unique sets of k elements created from the n elements in S and
each element of ck is in S. Because order is not important when
speaking about sets, we
may write write that the number of elements in ck is equal to nk . This shall be written

 
n
|ck | =
k

Thus if all elements in ck are in P (S), we write

|P (S)| = 1 + |c1 | + |c2 | + |c3 | + ... + |cn |

       
n n n n
=1+ + + + ... +
1 2 3 n
         
n n n n n
= + + + + ... +
0 1 2 3 n

Thus we have n  
X n
|P (S)| =
i=0
k
To put |P (S)| in an even more computationally friendly form, we will consider the Binomial
Theorem,
n  
n
X n n−k k
(a + b) = a b
i=0
k

1
By allowing a and b to be equal to zero, we get

n  
n
X n n−k k
(1 + 1) = 1 1
i=0
k
n  
n
X n
2 =
i=0
k
Pn n


Thus, knowing |P (S)| = i=0 k
, we may now write

|P (S)| = 2n

QED