pigeonhole principle
- If
objects are distributed over places, and if , then some place receives at least two objects. - If
objects are distributed over places such that no place receives more than one object, then each place receives exactly one object. - If
and are sets, and the cardinality of is greater than the cardinality of , then there is no injective function from to . - If
objects are distributed over places, and if , then some place receives no object. - If
objects are distributed over places such that no place receives no object, then each place receives exactly one object. - If
and are sets, and the cardinality of is less than the cardinality of , then there is no surjective function from to .
Formally, "there does not exist an injective function whose codomain is smaller than its domain."
Equivalently, "there does not exist a surjective function whose domain is smaller than its codomain."