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
- Every finite group has a finite presentation from its multiplication table Corollary
- (ℕ, ≤) has no maximal element: Zorn's chain hypothesis fails Counterexample
- A progressive map with no fixed point, on a poset that is not chain-complete 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
- 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
- Height and width of a nonempty finite poset Definition
- lceil m/n rceil for naturals m and n ≥ 1: the least q ∈ ℕ with m ≤ n q 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 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 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
- {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
- Arens space S₂ is sequential but not Fréchet–Urysohn Example
- For every F_σ subset E of [0,1] of measure zero there is a bounded Riemann integrable function on [0,1] whose set of discontinuities is exactly E Example
- min is a choice function on ℕ Example
- nℤ is a subgroup of (ℤ, +) for every n ∈ ℤ, and every subgroup of (ℤ, +) has this form Example
- Taking two positive terms for each negative one rearranges the alternating harmonic series to 3/2 times its sum, by the identity T₃ₙ = S₄ₙ + tfrac12 S₂ₙ Example
- The block sequence 1/1; 1/2, 2/2; 1/3, 2/3, 3/3; … has subsequential limit set exactly [0,1] Example
- The Cantor set is homeomorphic to {0,1}^ℕ with the product of discrete topologies, the ternary digits being the coordinates Example
- The cube [-M,M]ⁿ in ℝⁿ is totally bounded, with an explicit finite ε-net of grid points and no appeal to the integer part Example
- The sequential fan is Fréchet–Urysohn and not first countable Example
- FALSE: a totally bounded metric space is compact False statement
- A countable entourage base can be replaced in ZF by a decreasing symmetric base whose next triple composite lies in the preceding member Lemma
- A finite lattice has a bottom and a top, and every element is the join of the join-irreducible elements below it Lemma
- A maximal acyclic spanning subgraph of a connected graph is a spanning tree Lemma
- A nonempty set is at most countable iff it is a surjective image of ℕ Lemma
- A nonempty set of integers bounded above has a greatest element, and a nonempty set of integers bounded below has a least element Lemma
- A sequence converges in the topology of pointwise convergence exactly when it converges at every point Lemma
…and 51 more results.
Dependency tree · next 3 levels
Direct dependencies and their dependencies through the next three levels: 28 results over 14 levels. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, and this result sits at the bottom with a heavier outline. Click 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)