Cantor normal form

E886917

Cantor normal form is a canonical way of expressing any ordinal number as a finite sum of decreasing powers of the first infinite ordinal ω with natural number coefficients.

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Statements (45)

Predicate Object
instanceOf canonical form
mathematical concept
ordinal notation
appliesTo ordinal numbers
baseOrdinal ω
canonicalFor well-ordered sets up to order isomorphism
coefficientType natural numbers
constraintOnCoefficients ci ∈ ℕ and ci ≥ 1
constraintOnExponents α1 > α2 > … > αn ≥ 0
domain countable ordinals
enables lexicographic comparison of ordinals
exponentType ordinals
field mathematical logic
ordinal arithmetic
set theory
generalizes base-ω expansion of natural numbers
historicalPeriod late 19th century
includesCase zero ordinal has empty sum representation
introducedBy Georg Cantor NERFINISHED
logicalStrength its totality for all countable ordinals is not provable in very weak arithmetic theories
namedAfter Georg Cantor NERFINISHED
notationExample ω^α1·c1 + ω^α2·c2 + … + ω^αn·cn
property all coefficients are positive integers
exponents form a strictly decreasing sequence of ordinals
only finitely many nonzero terms
relatedConcept Cantor–Bendixson rank NERFINISHED
Veblen hierarchy NERFINISHED
epsilon numbers
ordinal collapsing function
representationType finite sum
requires strictly decreasing exponents
standardFormFor ordinal arithmetic
uniqueness every nonzero ordinal has a unique Cantor normal form
usedFor comparing ordinals
defining ordinal addition
defining ordinal exponentiation
defining ordinal multiplication
proofs about ordinal recursion
proofs about transfinite induction
usedIn descriptive set theory
ordinal analysis
proof theory
usedToDefine Cantor–Bendixson normal form for closed sets of reals NERFINISHED
usesSymbol ω
zeroCase 0 is represented by the empty sum

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Veblen hierarchy generalizes Cantor normal form