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The standard ordering ≤ of the natural numbers is a well ordering and has the additional property that every non-zero natural number has a unique predecessor. Another well ordering of the natural numbers is given by defining that all even numbers are less than all odd numbers, and the usual ordering applies within the evens and the odds:
Then, by the well-ordering principle, there is a least element ; cannot be prime since a prime number itself is considered a length-one product of primes. By the definition of non-prime numbers, n {\displaystyle n} has factors a , b {\displaystyle a,b} , where a , b {\displaystyle a,b} are integers greater than one and less than n ...
Every well-ordered set is order-equivalent to exactly one ordinal number, by definition. The ordinal numbers are taken to be the canonical representatives of their classes, and so the order type of a well-ordered set is usually identified with the corresponding ordinal. Order types thus often take the form of arithmetic expressions of ordinals.
The original definition of ordinal numbers, found for example in the Principia Mathematica, defines the order type of a well-ordering as the set of all well-orderings similar (order-isomorphic) to that well-ordering: in other words, an ordinal number is genuinely an equivalence class of well-ordered sets. This definition must be abandoned in ZF ...
Also, is the smallest uncountable ordinal (to see that it exists, consider the set of equivalence classes of well-orderings of the natural numbers; each such well-ordering defines a countable ordinal, and is the order type of that set), is the smallest ordinal whose cardinality is greater than , and so on, and is the limit of for natural ...
This is a well-ordering and hence gives an ordinal number. The definition of exponentiation can also be given by transfinite recursion on the exponent β. When the exponent β = 0, ordinary exponentiation gives α 0 = 1 for any α. For β > 0, the value of α β is the smallest ordinal greater than or equal to α δ · α for all δ < β ...
In mathematics, the well-ordering theorem, also known as Zermelo's theorem, states that every set can be well-ordered. A set X is well-ordered by a strict total order if every non-empty subset of X has a least element under the ordering. The well-ordering theorem together with Zorn's lemma are the most important mathematical statements that are ...
A current axiomatic definition is that real numbers form the unique (up to an isomorphism) Dedekind-complete ordered field. [d] Other common definitions of real numbers include equivalence classes of Cauchy sequences (of rational numbers), Dedekind cuts, and infinite decimal representations. All these definitions satisfy the axiomatic ...