Families of finite sets in which no set is covered by the union of the others

Abstract

Let F be a finite nonempty family of finite nonempty sets. We prove the following: (i) F satisfies the condition of the title if and only if for every pair of distinct subfamilies {A_1,...,A_r}, {B_1,...,B_s} of F, the union of the A_i is different from the union of the B_i. (ii) If F satisfies the condition of the title, then the number of subsets of the union of the members of F containing at least one set of F is odd. We give two applications of these results, one to number theory and one to commutative algebra.