cofinality
Noun
Meaning
(mathematics, countable) The least of the cardinalities of the cofinal subsets of a partially ordered set.
The cofinality of any set with a greatest element is 1.
(mathematics, uncountable) The property of being cofinal.
Source: en.wiktionary.orgExamples
Examples * The cofinality of a partially ordered set with greatest element is 1 as the set consisting only of the greatest element is cofinal (and must be contained in every other cofinal subset).
In 1904 Hausdorff published the recursion named after him: For each non-limit ordinal we have This formula was, together with the later notion of cofinality introduced by Hausdorff, the basis for all further results for Aleph exponentiation.
If two cofinal subsets of B have minimal cardinality (i.e. their cardinality is the cofinality of B), then they are order isomorphic to each other.
Of fundamental importance to the whole theory is the concept of cofinality that Hausdorff introduced.
The cofinality of 0 is 0. The cofinality of any successor ordinal is 1. The cofinality of any nonzero limit ordinal is an infinite regular cardinal.
The cofinality of a set of ordinals or any other well-ordered set is the cofinality of the order type of that set.