Cartesian Product

In mathematics, a Cartesian product (or product set) is a construction to build a new set out of a number of given sets. Each member of the Cartesian product corresponds to the selection of one element each in every one of those sets. The Cartesian product is named after René Descartes, whose formulation of analytic geometry gave rise to the concept.

The Cartesian product of two sets X (for example the points on an x-axis) and Y (for example the points on a y-axis), denoted X × Y, is the set of all possible ordered pairs whose first component is a member of X and whose second component is a member of Y (e.g., the whole of the x–y plane):

For example, the Cartesian product of the 13-element set of standard playing card ranks {Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2} and the four-element set of card suits {♠, ♥, ♦, ♣} is the 52-element set of all possible playing cards: ranks × suits = {(Ace, ♠), (King, ♠), ..., (2, ♠), (Ace, ♥), ..., (3, ♣), (2, ♣)}. The corresponding Cartesian product has 52 = 13 × 4 elements. The Cartesian product of the suits × ranks would still be the 52 pairings, but in the opposite order {(♠, Ace), (♠, King), ...}. Ordered pairs (a kind of tuple) have order, but sets are unordered. The order in which the elements of a set are listed is irrelevant; the deck can be shuffled and it is still the same set of cards.

A Cartesian product of two finite sets can be represented by a table, with one set as the rows and the other as the columns, and forming the ordered pairs, the cells of the table, by choosing the element of the set from the row and the column.