Write again . The countable cardinal sum equals : it is at least their supremum, and at most . König's theorem gives
The latter product injects into by fixing coordinate zero and putting its th coordinate in coordinate . Conversely injects into the set of all functions . Therefore
No cardinal lies strictly between and its successor, so
The strict lower bound is essential: replacing the product by the supremum of its factors would incorrectly give .
The cardinal sum is the cardinality of a disjoint union, and the cardinal product is the cardinality of the set of choice functions:
Here the cardinals are represented by initial ordinals. Tagging by makes the summands disjoint even when their underlying sets overlap. For an empty index set the sum is zero and the product is one, because there is exactly one empty function. If any factor in a nonempty product is zero, that product is empty.
First give the recursive definitions, keeping the right argument as the recursion variable. For ordinals and nonzero limit ordinals ,
Here is the successor ordinal, and the supremum of a set of ordinals is its union. These are ordinal arithmetic, defined by transfinite recursion, and differ from cardinal sum and ordinal multiplication.
Associativity of ordinal addition is true. Fix and use transfinite induction on . The case is immediate. In the successor step the recursive definitions and the induction hypothesis give
For a nonzero limit ordinal , the ordinals for form an increasing cofinal subset of the limit ordinal . The limit clause for ordinal addition, restricted to this cofinal subset, gives
Cofinal restriction is valid because ordinal addition by a fixed ordinal on the left is increasing and continuous in its right argument, directly from its recursive definition. This completes the induction.
Hartogs theorem says that for every set there is a least ordinal for which no injection exists. This does not require the axiom of choice. Form the set of well-orderings of subsets of . It can be defined by the axiom schema of specification inside
recording a subset and its well-order. Each member of has a unique ordinal order type. Axiom schema of replacement is used to collect those order types into a set
Every member of an ordinal in is the order type of an initial segment of the corresponding well-ordering, so also belongs to . Thus is a transitive set of ordinals and is itself an ordinal. An ordinal belongs to exactly when it injects into : use a bijection to a well-ordered subset in one direction, and transport the ordinal order along the injection in the other. If injected into , this characterization would give , impossible for an ordinal. All smaller ordinals lie in and do inject into . Therefore . Apart from the standard order-type theorem, the explicit collection of all order types is the Axiom schema of replacement step; no axiom of choice of a representative ordering for each type is needed.
Zorn's lemma states that a nonempty partially ordered set in which every chain has an upper bound has a maximal element. Use the Hartogs bound on partial ordinal injections to obtain a set-sized partially ordered set. Consider the partial injections into whose domains are ordinals. Hartogs theorem bounds every such domain strictly below . Their graphs of a function therefore form a set
obtained by the axiom schema of specification from . Order by extension. It is nonempty because it contains the empty function. A chain has as an upper bound the union of its graphs of a function: extension makes this a function, injectivity is preserved, and its domain is an union of ordinals and hence an ordinal. Its range is contained in , so Hartogs theorem forces its domain to be strictly below ; thus it belongs to . The empty chain also has the empty function as an upper bound.
By Zorn's lemma choose a maximal . If an element lay outside its range, appending would give a larger injection on . Such an injection itself guarantees by Hartogs theorem, so it is a legitimate member of , contradicting maximality in a partially ordered set. Therefore is surjective, and
For this single extension one only selects an element of one specified nonempty set; no additional simultaneous choices are hidden in the argument. Zorn's lemma is the form of the axiom of choice used to obtain maximality in a partially ordered set.
Finally work with cardinals, represented by initial ordinals, and put . It is infinite by hypothesis. Nonzeroness of each factor gives an injection of the larger cardinal into the Cartesian product by holding a coordinate of the other fixed. The supplied infinite-ordinal square result gives . Hence
For the sum, use disjoint union:
The last injection exists because is infinite and contains two distinct elements. Cantor-Schröder-Bernstein theorem turns both pairs of bounds into equalities, proving
These final operations are cardinal sum and multiplication, measuring disjoint unions and Cartesian products. They are not the noncommutative ordinal arithmetic considered in question 5.