The disjoint union of two sets and is a binary operator that combines all distinct elements of a pair of given sets, while retaining the original set membership as a distinguishing characteristic of the union set. The disjoint union is denoted
(1)
|
where is a Cartesian product. For example, the disjoint union of sets and can be computed by finding
(2)
| |||
(3)
|
so
(4)
| |||
(5)
|