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An antichain in a partially ordered set is a set of elements no two of which are comparable to each other, and a chain is a set of elements every two of which are comparable. A chain decomposition is a partition of the elements of the order into disjoint chains. Dilworth's theorem states that, in any finite partially ordered set, the largest ...
An antichain in is a subset of in which each pair of different elements is incomparable; that is, there is no order relation between any two different elements in . (However, some authors use the term "antichain" to mean strong antichain , a subset such that there is no element of the poset smaller than two distinct elements of the antichain.)
As another example, consider the positive integers, ordered by divisibility: 1 is a least element, as it divides all other elements; on the other hand this poset does not have a greatest element. This partially ordered set does not even have any maximal elements, since any g divides for instance 2 g , which is distinct from it, so g is not maximal.
In a partially ordered set there may be some elements that play a special role. The most basic example is given by the least element of a poset. For example, 1 is the least element of the positive integers and the empty set is the least set under the subset order. Formally, an element m is a least element if:
The red subset = {1,2,3,4} has two maximal elements, viz. 3 and 4, and one minimal element, viz. 1, which is also its least element. In mathematics , especially in order theory , a maximal element of a subset S {\displaystyle S} of some preordered set is an element of S {\displaystyle S} that is not smaller than any other element in S ...
The family of all subsets of an n-element set (its power set) can be partially ordered by set inclusion; in this partial order, two distinct elements are said to be incomparable when neither of them contains the other. The width of a partial order is the largest number of elements in an antichain, a set of pairwise incomparable elements ...
A partially ordered set (poset) consists of a set of elements together with a binary relation x ≤ y on pairs of elements that is reflexive (x ≤ x for every x), transitive (if x ≤ y and y ≤ z then x ≤ z), and antisymmetric (if both x ≤ y and y ≤ x hold, then x = y).
Hasse diagram of the natural numbers, partially ordered by "x≤y if x divides y".The numbers 4 and 6 are incomparable, since neither divides the other. In mathematics, two elements x and y of a set P are said to be comparable with respect to a binary relation ≤ if at least one of x ≤ y or y ≤ x is true.