I will copy and paste what he said because it was extremely helpful in explaining the difference:
A SET is like a "bunch" or "collection" or "group" of things. An example is the set of girls in your daughter's school class. Another example is the set of all 2-digit perfect square numbers greater than your age. That is written { 49, 64, 81 }. This is a finite set so you can list the things in it. The 3 things in it are its ELEMENTs or its MEMBERs.
The order in which you list the elements makes no difference. For instance, {2, 3, 5, 7} is considered to be exactly the same set as {5, 7, 3, 2}. Whether you list them in numerical order or alphabetical order, this is still the set of all one-digit prime numbers.
Some sets are infinite, like the set of all even numbers greater than your age, which can be written
{ 2*N | N is a whole number and N > 23 }.
You say this "The set of all numbers of the form 2*N where N is a whole number and N is greater than 23". You can also write this set as { 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, ..... } .
The INTERSECTION of 2 sets is another set. The members of the INTERSECTION set have to be in both of those 2 sets. Think of the sets of numbers I mentioned in the previous paragraph. The only number that is in both sets is 64, so the intersection is { 64 } which is a set with exactly one element.
What about the UNION? Whereas the INTERSECTION of 2 sets contains the elements that are in BOTH of the 2 sets, the UNION of 2 sets contains the elements in EITHER one of the 2 sets. Here is an example: If the first set is { 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 } and the second set is { 4, 5, 6, 7 } then the intersection of the 2 is { 4, 5, 6 } and the union of the 2 is { 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 }.
Let's see, what's left? SUBSET. It's sort of what it sounds like.
Let's do this with another example. I will specify 2 sets, called set A and set B, as follows:
A is the set of all girls in your daughter's class at school.
B is the set of all girls in your daughter's class at school whose first name begins with a vowel.
It is clear that any member of B is also a member of A, just by the way these 2 sets are defined. This is what we mean by saying that B is a SUBSET of the set A. I don't know your daughter's name, so I'm not going to be very accurate here, but let's see how this could turn out. I'll present two possibilities for the set A. I'll assume your daughter is Francesca.
A = { Francesca , Maria , Anita , Jean , Irene } A = { Francesca , Maria , Donna , Jean , Kendra , Hillary }
If the top version is the true one, then B is { Anita , Irene }. If the bottom version is the true one, then B is ..... wait a minute here! .... there are NO NAMES that begin with a vowel. Precisely, so B is still a perfectly good set which just happens not to have ANY members. This is called the EMPTY SET. The empty set is a subset of all sets. Strange but true.
This is a start for you. At your Public Library in the math section they usually have books at many levels of learning. Often the reference librarian can steer you to something useful if you describe what you are looking for. Good luck and have fun.
-Doctor Mike, The Math Forum Check out our web site! http://mathforum.org/dr.math/