Ordinal Partitions

Lawrence C. Paulson 🌐

August 3, 2020

This is a development version of this entry. It might change over time and is not stable. Please refer to release versions for citations.

Abstract

The theory of partition relations concerns generalisations of Ramsey's theorem. For any ordinal $\alpha$, write $\alpha \to (\alpha, m)^2$ if for each function $f$ from unordered pairs of elements of $\alpha$ into $\{0,1\}$, either there is a subset $X\subseteq \alpha$ order-isomorphic to $\alpha$ such that $f\{x,y\}=0$ for all $\{x,y\}\subseteq X$, or there is an $m$ element set $Y\subseteq \alpha$ such that $f\{x,y\}=1$ for all $\{x,y\}\subseteq Y$. (In both cases, with $\{x,y\}$ we require $x\not=y$.) In particular, the infinite Ramsey theorem can be written in this notation as $\omega \to (\omega, \omega)^2$, or if we restrict $m$ to the positive integers as above, then $\omega \to (\omega, m)^2$ for all $m$. This entry formalises Larson's proof of $\omega^\omega \to (\omega^\omega, m)^2$ along with a similar proof of a result due to Specker: $\omega^2 \to (\omega^2, m)^2$. Also proved is a necessary result by Erdős and Milner: $\omega^{1+\alpha\cdot n} \to (\omega^{1+\alpha}, 2^n)^2$.

License

BSD License

Topics

Session Ordinal_Partitions