Ordinal Successor

🅟 Mar 01, 2026

  🅤 Jun 10, 2026

Definition 1.

The successor of an ordinal $\alpha$ is the ordinal

\[\alpha + 1 = \alpha \cup \{\alpha\}.\]

An ordinal $\alpha$ is a successor ordinal if $\alpha = \beta+1$ for some ordinal $\beta$.


Proposition 1.

For any ordinal $\alpha$,

\[\alpha + 1 = \inf \{\beta : \beta > \alpha\}.\]

Proposition 2.

For any infinite ordinal $\alpha$,

\[\lvert \alpha + 1 \rvert = \lvert \alpha \rvert.\]

Proof.

\[f : \alpha + 1 \to \alpha, \, \xi \mapsto \begin{cases} 0, & \text{if $\xi = \alpha$}; \\ \xi + 1, & \text{if $\xi < \omega$}; \\ \xi, & \text{otherwise} \end{cases}\]

is an injection.