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The rational numbers form an initial totally ordered set which is dense in the real numbers. Moreover, the reflexive reduction < is a dense order on the rational numbers. The real numbers form an initial unbounded totally ordered set that is connected in the order topology (defined below). Ordered fields are totally ordered by definition. They ...
Definition: the sum of cardinals K and L such as K= Card(A) and L = Card(B) where the sets A and B are disjoint, is Card (A ∪ B). The definition of a finite set is given independently of natural numbers: [3] Definition: A set is finite if and only if any non empty family of its subsets has a minimal element for the inclusion order.
An axiomatic definition of the real numbers consists of defining them as the elements of a complete ordered field. [2] [3] [4] This means the following: The real numbers form a set, commonly denoted , containing two distinguished elements denoted 0 and 1, and on which are defined two binary operations and one binary relation; the operations are called addition and multiplication of real ...
Cantor used the isomorphism theorem to characterize the ordering of the real numbers, an uncountable set. Unlike the rational numbers, the real numbers are Dedekind-complete, meaning that every subset of the reals that has a finite upper bound has a real least upper bound. They contain the rational numbers, which are dense in the real numbers.
Considering the natural numbers as a subset of the real numbers, and assuming that we know already that the real numbers are complete (again, either as an axiom or a theorem about the real number system), i.e., every bounded (from below) set has an infimum, then also every set of natural numbers has an infimum, say .
The real numbers can be generalized and extended in several different directions: The complex numbers contain solutions to all polynomial equations and hence are an algebraically closed field unlike the real numbers. However, the complex numbers are not an ordered field. The affinely extended real number system adds two elements +∞ and −∞.
The rational numbers are the smallest substructure of the real (or complex) numbers that also satisfies the field axioms. The set of integers gives an even smaller substructure of the real numbers which is not a field. Indeed, the integers are the substructure of the real numbers generated by the empty set, using this signature.
In the mathematical field of set theory, the Solovay model is a model constructed by Robert M. Solovay in which all of the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZF) hold, exclusive of the axiom of choice, but in which all sets of real numbers are Lebesgue measurable. The construction relies on the existence of an inaccessible cardinal.