Ordinal Numbers

and Their Arithmetic

There are two related but distinct concepts of enumeration,

cardinal and ordinal. A cardinal number is one of the
families consisting of all sets that can be put into one-to-one
correspondence with each other. Thus 2 is the family of all
sets that can be put into one-to-one correspondence with {1,
2}. In a sense, 2 represents the property of two-ness. While
cardinality involves only sets, ordinality involves sets and
order relations on those sets. An order relation is like that of
"≤" although it doesn't have to be numerical inequality. For
example, the ordering can the the lexicographic
(alphabetical) ordering of words; "adz" comes before
"bowl" in the dictionary.
Order relations may be reflexive as is ≤ or nonreflexive as is
<. For simplicity "≤" will be used for any reflexive order
relation.
A set is totally ordered if for any two elements a and b from A
either a≤b, b≤a, or both, which means a=b.
A set is well ordered if all of its nonempty subsets have first
elements under the order relation. That is to say, if S is a
subset of A then there exists an element of S, say x, such that
for any element y in S, x≤y. (Here it is important that the
relation is reflexive; i.e., x≤x.)
An ordinal number is a family of well-ordered sets that can
be put into one-to-one correspondences that preserve the
order relations; i.e., if f:A→B and a1 ≤A a2 for a1,a2 ∈ A then
b1=f(a1) ≤B b2=f(a2). Thus if a is the first element of A1 ⊂ A
then f(a) is the first element of the set f(A1).
The collection of well-ordered sets is partitioned into
equivalence classes. Each equivalence class contains all the
well-ordered sets that are similar to each other. The
equivalence classes may be thought of as having labels or
indices.
In a well-order set A, the initial segment s(x) of an element x
belonging to A is the set of all elements which precede x in A
under the order relation; i.e., )

s(x) = {z |z ∈ A and z≤x}.

 Theorem 1: Let S(A) be the family of all initial

segments of A. S(A) is ordered by set inclusion. The
function f that maps an element x to its initial segment
is one-to-one and onto; i.e., f:A→S(A). Furthermore f
preserves order so A is similar to S(A).
 Theorem 2: Suppose A is a well-ordered set and B
is a subset of A such that there exists a similarity
mapping f of A into B. Then for every element x of A,
x≤f(x).
Proof: Let D={x|f(x)≤x}. If D=φ, the empty set, then the
theorem is true.
Suppose D is not empty. Then, since A is a well-ordered
set, D has a first element d. Since d ∈ D, f(d)≤d. But,
since f is a similarity mapping which preserves order
f(f(d))≤f(d) and hence f(d) ∈ D. But f(d)≤d so there is a
contradiction with the assumption that d is the first
element of D. Therefore D must be empty.
 The next theorem is a very useful one.
Theorem 3: A well-ordered set cannot be similar to one
of its initial segments.
Proof: Let A be a well-ordered set and f a similarity
mapping of A onto the initial segment s(x) for some x ∈
A. By definition all elements of s(x) are less than x.
Therefore f(x)≤x. But this contradict Theorem 2.
Therefore a well-ordered set cannot be similar to one of
its initial segments.
 Theorem 4: If A and B are well-ordered sets then
either A and B are similar or one is similar to an intial
segment of the other.
Proof: Consider the elements of each set whose initial
sets are similar to the initial sets of elements in the other
set; i.e., let
 S = {x|x∈A and s(x) is similar to s(y) for some y∈B}
T = {y|y∈B and s(y) is similar to s(x) for some x∈A}

For example, suppose A = {1,2,3,4} and B = {a,b,c,d,e}.

Then S = {1,2,3,4} and T = {a,b,c,d}.

Continuation with the proof of Theorem 4. Claim: S is

similar to T.
Proof of Claim: Consider an element of x. By definition
there is an element y ∈ B such that s(x) is similar it s(y).
This y is unique because otherwise there would be two
initial segments of B, say s(y1) and s(y2) which were both
similar to s(x) and hence similar to each other. But this
implies that s(y1)=s(y2) and hence y1=y2. Likewise x the
element of A such that s(x) is similar to y ∈ B is unique.
This correspondence defines a one-to- one relationship
between the elements of S and T. Thus S and T are
similar.
There are three possibilities:

o 1. If S=A and T=B then A is similar to B.

 o 2. If S=A and T=s(b) for some b ∈ B, then A is
similar to an intial segment of B.
o 3. If T=B and S=s(a) for some a ∈ A, then B is
similar to an initial segment of A.

The fourth possibility of S=s(a) for some a ∈ A and

T=s(b) for some b ∈ B cannot occur. This would imply
that a ∈ S, since its initial segment is similar to the
initial segment of an element (E S) of B, but since S=s(a)
this would have a belonging to its own initial segment.
Thus there would be a contradiction.

Definition: The order type of a well-ordered set is the family

of well-ordered sets it is similar to. In other words, the order
type of a well-ordered set A, denoted ord(A), is the
equivalence class A belongs to. If ord(A)=λ then A ∈λ.
There is a particular sequence of ordered sets that are
appropriate to use to represent order types. For finite sets
the following are "standard" order types:

φ, {φ, {φ}}, {φ,{φ},{φ, {φ}}}, …

where φ is used to denote the empty set.

Because this gets tedious to write the following labels are
adopted:
 φ→ 0
{φ}→ 1
{φ,{φ}}→ 2
{φ,{φ},{φ, {φ}}}→ 3

...................

Thus

φ→0
{0} → 1
{0, 1} → 2
{0, 1, 2} → 3

The order type of the natural numbers, {0, 1, 2, 3, … } is

denoted as omega, ω.

The Ordering of Ordinals

The ordering of ordinal numbers is achieved through the
following construction. If λ and μ are ordinal numbers and
A and B are well-ordered sets such that ord(A)=λ and
ord(B)=μ then:
λ < μ if A is similar to an initial segment of B
λ = μ if A is similar to B
λ > μ if B is similar to an initial segment of A
λ ≤ μ if λ ≤ μ or λ = μ
λ ≥ μ if λ > μ or λ = μ.

 Theorem 5: Any set of ordinals is well-ordered by

≤.
Theorem 6: Let s(λ ) be the set of all ordinals less


than λ . Then ord(s(λ ))=λ .

 Theorem 7: Every ordinal has an immediate
successor.
 Definition of a limit element: An element of a well-
ordered set is a limit element if it does not have an
immediate predecessor and it is not the first element. A
limit number is an ordinal which is a limit element of
the ordinals.
 Theorem 8: For any infinite ordinal λ there exists
ordinal numbers μ and n such that μ is a limit number
and n is a finite ordinal.

Addition of Ordinals
Definition of concatenation of well-ordered sets: Let A and B
be well-ordered sets. Then (A ; B) is the union of A and B
ordered by the relation R where any two elements x and y
are ordered according their relation in A or B if they both
belong to A or both belong to B and x
Definition of addition of ordinals: For any two ordinals λ and μ let A and B be
well-ordered sets such that ord(A)=λ and ord(B)=μ . Then
 λ +μ = ord((A ; B)).

For this definition to be proper it must be established that

λ+μ is independent of the representative A and B used in the
construction.
Addition is not necessarily commutative; λ+μ is not
necessarily the same as μ+λ . For example, 1+ω is not the
same as ω+1; i.e., ω+1 = ord({0,1,2,...; 0}) but 1+ω is
ord({0,0,1,2,3,...})=ω.
Addition is associative; (λ +μ)+ ν = λ +(μ + ν). There also
exists an additive identity; i.e., the empty set φ.

Theorem 9: The immediate successor of any

ordinal λ is λ +1.

Multiplication of Ordinals
Definition of the cartesian product of well-ordered sets:

Let A and B be well-ordered sets. Then (A X B) is the

cartesian product of A and B, order pairs (a,b) where a ∈ A
and b ∈ B, ordered by the relation R where any two elements
(x,y) and (z,w) are ordered according to

(x,y) ≤ (z,w) if y≤w in B or y=w and x≤z in A.

This is called a reverse lexicographic ordering.
Definition of multiplication of ordinals:
Definition of multiplication of ordinals: For any two ordinals
λ and μ let A and B be well-ordered sets such that ord(A)=λ
and ord(B)=μ . Then

λ*μ= ord((A × B)).

Again, for this definition to be proper it must be established

that λ*μ is independent of the representative A and B used
in the construction.
Multiplication is not commutative. For example, 2*ω is not
the same as ω*2; i.e., 2=ord({a,b}) and ω=ord({1,2,..}) so

2*ω = ord({(a,1),(b,1),(a,2),(b,2),...}) = ω
but ω*2 = ord({(1,a),(2,a)...; (1,b),(2,b),...})

However, multiplication is associative.

In the folowing let card(A) stand for the cardinality of a set
A.

 Theorem 10: Let A and B be well ordered sets.

Then card(A)≤card(B) implies that ord(A)≤ord(B), and
ord(A)≤ord(B) implies that card(A)≤card(B).
The order of the ordinals is 0,1,2,3,..., then ω,ω+1,ω+2,...
then ω2,ω2+1, ω2+2,... to ω3 and so on to ωω.
From there the sequence goes on to ω to the power of ωω.
Next comes (ω to the power of ωω) to the power of ω
and on to (ω to the power of ω to the power of ω … .
But there is always a successor to any ordinal.

Definition of Exponentiation of Ordinals

Definition of functions from one well-ordered set to another:
Let A and B be well-ordered sets. Then AB is the set of all
functions from A to B.
The Burali-Forti Paradox: The concept of the set of all
ordinal numbers is contradictory.
Proof not given.
Modeling ordinal arithmetic in the programming language
LISP is convenient because a list is exactly a well-ordered
set. For any list one can construct the corresponding ordinal
by creating a list that begins with "0" and ends with a
cardinal that is one less than the length of the list. The
middle of the ordinal list is just the ellipsis "…". Infinite
ordinals are ones in which the … has no successor (other
than the delimiters ";" and ")".