Early Research
The empty set is a set of uniqueness. This is just a fancy way to say that if a trigonometric series converges to zero everywhere then it is trivial. This was proved by Riemann, using a delicate technique of double formal integration; and showing that the resulting sum has some generalized kind of second derivative using Toeplitz operators. Later on, Cantor generalized Riemann's techniques to show that any countable, closed set is a set of uniqueness, a discovery which led him to the development of set theory. Interestingly, Paul Cohen, another great innovator in set theory, started his career with a thesis on sets of uniqueness.
As the theory of Lebesgue integration developed, it was assumed that any set of zero measure would be a set of uniqueness — in one dimension the locality principle for Fourier series shows that any set of positive measure is a set of multiplicity (in higher dimensions this is still an open question). This was disproved by D. E. Menshov who in 1916 constructed an example of a set of multiplicity which has measure zero.
Read more about this topic: Set Of Uniqueness
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