In set theory, if natural numbers are represented by nested sets that include the empty set, how are the rest of the real numbers represented as sets?
Thanks for the answers. Several answers basically said for irrational numbers that A Dedekind cut is a pair of sets of rational numbers $\{L, R\}$. The set of real numbers is defined to be the set of all Dedekind cuts, where a Dedekind cut is a pair of sets of rational numbers $\{L, R\}$ which have no elements in common, and where all the elements of $L$ are less than any element of $R$. Each Dedekind cut is a real number. This is where I have a problem - surely that can’t be correct. The set $L$ is a set of all rationals, and there must be a rational in the set $L$ that is greater than all other rationals in that set, even if we have no method of determining it. And similarly, there must be a rational in the set $R$ that is less than all other rationals in that set, even if we have no method of determining it. If every irrational number has a corresponding set $L$, then each irrational number has some such corresponding largest element of that set $L$, and then each irrational number has some corresponding rational number. And that would mean that the irrational numbers are countable. So, with Dedekind cuts, the only conclusion is that there must be irrational numbers $x$ which are either greater or lesser than some irrational cut $y$ of the rationals, and between $x$ and $y$ there is no rational number. But that is impossible, so that the Dedekind cuts cannot be the correct representation of the real numbers.
Surely the problem with Dedekind cuts is in using sets of rationals that include all rationals up to a certain rational. But there is an alternative method of representing irrationals can be defined in terms of infinite sets of rational numbers. For example, in binary notation, the non-integer part of $\pi$ is $.00100100\ 00111111\ 01101010\ 10001$. You define a set by: if the nth digit is a $1$, then the natural number $n$ is in the set. And then we have that, for the real numbers between $0$ and $1$, that the set of real numbers is simply the set of all subsets of natural numbers. Each subset corresponds to some real number between $0$ and $1$.
And in this way, all real numbers can be considered to be some set based only on nested sets of the empty set.
But I still haven’t got a satisfactory answer for how negative numbers can be represented in terms only of sets containing the empty set. Any ideas?