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Exercise 8.1.1
Prove: If a set can be linearly ordered, then every system of finite subsets of has a choice function. (It does not follow from the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms that every set can be linearly ordered.)
Answers
Proof. We show this by strong induction on the cardinality of the set. So consider natural number and suppose that all linear ordered sets of cardinality are well-orderings. Also suppose that is any linearly ordered set with . Consider any nonempty so that there is a . Then clearly is also a finite set with so that . Clearly also is linearly ordered by so that, by the induction hypothesis, is well-ordered by . Now, if , then it follows that , which clearly has least element . On the other hand, if , then it has a least element since it is well-ordered. Since is a linear ordering, it has to be that either or .
Case: . Then consider any . If then obviously . If then so that again since is the least element of . This shows that is the least element of since was arbitrary.
Case: . Then consider any . If then obviously . If then so that since is the least element of . This shows that is the least element of since was arbitrary.
Hence in all cases we have that has a -least element. This shows that is a well-ordering of since was arbitrary. This completes the inductive proof. □
Main Problem.
Proof. Suppose that is a set that can be linearly ordered and suppose that is a such a linear ordering. Suppose also that is a system of finite subsets of . Then clearly any is finite and linearly ordered by . We then have that is a well-ordering of by Lemma 1. So we then set
for any . Clearly then is a choice function for . □