Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society

Table of Contents - June 1972 - Volume 6, Issue 03  

Research Article

On a cardinal equation in set theory

J.L. Hickmana1

a1 Department of Mathematics, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT.

Abstract

We work in a Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory without the Axiom of Choice. In the appendix to his paper “Sur les ensembles finis”, Tarski proposed a finiteness criterion that we have called “C-finiteness”: a nonempty set is called “C-finite” if it cannot be partitioned into two blocks, each block being equivalent to the whole set. Despite the fact that this criterion can be shown to possess several features that are undesirable in a finiteness criterion, it has a fair amount of intrinsic interest. In Section 1 of this paper we look at a certain class of C-finite sets; in Section 2 we derive a few consequences from the negation of C-finiteness; and in Section 3 we show that not every C-infinite set necessarily possesses a linear ordering. Any unexplained notation is given in my paper, “Some definitions of finiteness”, Bull. Austral. Math. Soc. 5 (1971).

(Received February 02 1972)