Is there a quick way to notate 'any intersection of these sets is the empty set'?

Is there a quick way to notate 'any intersection of these sets is the empty set'?

I have a number of sets, I want to express that none share any elements with any other. Is there a way to express that other than individually notating every intersection as equal to the empty set?

Edit:

From PJS36's answer, I found an answer to the question of notation on wolfram mathworld:

sets $A_1, A_2, ..., A_n$ are disjoint if $A_i \cap A_j =\emptyset$ for $i\neq j$.

1 Answer

The phrase I've always seen/used is "pairwise disjoint." Given sets $A_i$, if $A_i \cap A_j = \emptyset$ for $i \neq j$, we say that the sets are pairwise disjoint.

• That's helpful. Just read the article on Wikipedia. It's the exact notion that I want. However, the article didn't say how to notate, say, eight, "mutually disjoint" sets. – Hal Mar 22 '15 at 19:39
• Oh, notation... Yeah, I would just throw in the phrase "pairwise disjoint", rather than coming up with some kind of notation scheme. I don't know if any notation for that situation exists. – pjs36 Mar 22 '15 at 19:42