How statement and proof provenance work
The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.
- Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
- AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
The well-ordering principle
Statement
Every nonempty subset has a least element: there is with for all .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A nonempty subset . Define (informally, no element of is ).
Induction principle: a subset of that contains and is closed under equals (The principle of mathematical induction).
; consequently no satisfies (Discreteness: is the immediate successor).
Exactly one of , , holds (Trichotomy of the order on ); and (Discreteness: is the immediate successor).
is injective (Peano axiom P2) (The von Neumann naturals form a Peano system).
for all (the left successor law, Left successor law for addition).
for all (Left identity for addition).
Proof
Suppose is nonempty but has no least element.
If then : by [L2] applied to and we get , say ; then [L5], so by injectivity [L4], hence .
First, : if then for all , since [L6], making a least element, contrary to the assumption; hence ; moreover forces , because would give (as [L6] with ) while gives , and [L3] admits at most one of these; so every lies outside .
Next, is closed under : assume ; if then no satisfies (else by step 1.2, so because , a contradiction), hence for all by [L3], making a least element, contrary to the assumption; therefore , and any with satisfies or ; in the second case together with gives by the definition of the strict order, hence by step 1.2 and because , while in the first case ; so every lies outside , giving .
By the induction principle [L1], from and closure under , ; then for every , taking shows , so , contradicting nonemptiness; therefore has a least element.
Depends on
- The natural numbers $\mathbb{N}$ (von Neumann)
- Order on the natural numbers
- The principle of mathematical induction
- Discreteness: $\sigma(n)$ is the immediate successor
- Trichotomy of the order on $\mathbb{N}$
- The von Neumann naturals form a Peano system
- Left successor law for addition
- Left identity for addition
Used by
- A finite-dimensional normed subspace is closed Corollary
- At a finite maximal time an ODE solution leaves every compact subset of the domain Corollary
- Every finite group has a finite presentation from its multiplication table Corollary
- Topological recurrence on second-countable spaces Corollary
- (ℕ, ≤) has no maximal element: Zorn's chain hypothesis fails Counterexample
- A closed subspace of ell-infinity that is not complemented Counterexample
- A progressive map with no fixed point, on a poset that is not chain-complete Counterexample
- Countable levels do not suffice for König’s lemma Counterexample
- Finite strictly decreasing sequences of naturals form a tree with every finite level nonempty but no infinite branch Counterexample
- In the bounded real-valued functions on ℕ with the supremum metric, the closed unit ball is closed and bounded and is not compact: the indicator functions of the singletons are pairwise at distance 1 Counterexample
- ⌈ m/n ⌉ for naturals m and n ≥ 1: the least q ∈ ℕ with m ≤ n q Definition
- Cliques, stable sets, the clique number ω(G) and stability number α(G) Definition
- Common multiple, and the least common multiple lcm(a,b), taken to be 0 when a = 0 or b = 0 Definition
- Complete quotients in the continued-fraction algorithm Definition
- Eventually periodic regular continued fractions Definition
- First-return times and induced transformations Definition
- Height and width of a nonempty finite poset Definition
- Minimal cyclic power diagram and relator root Definition
- Nilpotent endomorphisms and their nilpotency index Definition
- Nilpotent groups and nilpotency class Definition
- Proper vertex colourings and chromatic number Definition
- The Axiom of Countable Choice (AC_ω) Definition
- The characteristic of a ring: the least n ≥ 1 with n · 1_R = 0 when one exists, and 0 otherwise Definition
- The derived series, solvable groups, and derived length Definition
- The Dirichlet function 1_ℚ, and Thomae's function t with t(x) = 1/q at a rational x = p/q in lowest terms with q ≥ 1 and t(x) = 0 at every irrational x Definition
- The dyadic rationals of [0,1], their finite levels Dₙ, and their density in [0,1] Definition
- The exponent of a finite group Definition
- The off-diagonal Ramsey number R(s,t) as the least N with N→(s,t)², for positive s,t Definition
- The order |G| of a finite group and the order ord(g) of an element, with ord(g) = ∞ when no positive power of g is the identity Definition
- The order of a zero of a holomorphic function Definition
- The path metric of a connected simple graph Definition
- The Prüfer code of a tree on a finite set of natural labels Definition
- The Schur number S(c) as the largest N for which {1,…,N} has a c-colouring with no positive monochromatic solution of x+y=z Definition
- The uniform Ramsey number Rₖ(r;c) as the least finite witness for c colours on k-element subsets Definition
- The van der Waerden number W(k,c) as the least interval length forcing a monochromatic k-term arithmetic progression Definition
- Well-order and well-ordered set Definition
- Word length of a group element with respect to a generating set Definition
- {1/k : k ≥ 1} ∪ {0} is compact while {1/k : k ≥ 1} is not closed Example
- An explicit greedy rearrangement of the alternating harmonic series with sum 0, and the same recipe for any prescribed real Example
- An explicit norming functional for the finite-dimensional maximum norm Example
…and 119 more results.
Dependency tree · two levels
19 results within two dependency steps of this one, each drawn at its shortest distance from it. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, so the chart reads left to right and ends at this result, which carries a heavier outline. Every node is a link to that result. Click elsewhere on the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- Well-ordering principle (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- Mathematical induction (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- B. Kaya, MATH 320 Set Theory (METU lecture notes) (standard reference, not scraped)