Past exam of the logic and set theory course of the University of Oxford 2011 B 4 a ii Solution 2026-10-31
Suppose is an injection. Shift its image by definingThe two pieces have disjoint images, so is injective, but is omitted. Thus is not surjective.
Conversely, let be an injection which omits some . The natural-number recursion theorem defines , . If with , repeated injectivity cancels iterations and gives , putting in the image of , a contradiction. Hence is injective. ThereforeChoosing one witness from a single known nonempty set uses no axiom of choice. This is the Dedekind-infinite characterization.