For two kappa-filtrations at exhausting sets of size , any bijection between the sets carries corresponding stages onto one another on a club set of indices. Bound both forward and inverse images at each countable stage by a function . The limit ordinals closed under all earlier -values form a club; continuity gives equality at those ordinals.
If is stationary and for a kappa-filtration, then is constant on a stationary subset. Restrict to limit indices and use continuity to find a smaller stage containing each value. Fodor lemma fixes that stage on a stationary subset. Its size is less than , so club filter completeness makes one value fiber stationary.
The maximum is . We construct that many aleph-one-like linear orders, whose proper initial segments are countable, and prove that they are nonisomorphic. As usual the rational-type requirement concerns nonempty proper initial segments; the empty segment occurs in every order.
Let be the club set of nonzero limit ordinals below . For , form the order sum
Here means a new least point followed by a copy of the rational numbers; distinct blocks are disjoint, and all points of an earlier block precede every point of a later one. Every block is countable, dense and has no greatest point. Since , the full total order has neither a least nor a greatest point. It has size .
The sum is dense: within a block use density, and for points in different blocks choose a larger point in the earlier block. If is a proper initial segment and lies in block , then is contained in the union of the blocks through . There are only countably many such blocks, each countable. Thus is countable, rather than an uncountable interval in an aleph-one-dense order.
Every nonempty is dense and has no least point. If it has no greatest point either, the back-and-forth method gives : enumerate both orders, alternately include the least unused element from either enumeration in a finite partial order isomorphism, and choose its partner in the appropriate open interval. Density and absence of endpoints always supply a new partner. The union is a bijective order isomorphism. If has a greatest point, remove it, apply the same argument, and reattach it. Hence every nonempty proper initial segment is isomorphic to or .
The stationary information is recorded at the limit cuts. Write
This is a continuous increasing kappa-filtration by countable initial segments. At a limit , the complement has a least point exactly when .
Suppose is an order isomorphism. Since each filtration stage is countable, its image under and the corresponding image under are bounded in block index: the supremum of their countable collection of countable ordinals remains below . Choose so that
The set
is a club set. To see unboundedness, start above any given ordinal and recursively choose larger than every for . The supremum of the countable sequence remains below and belongs to . Closure follows because below a limit of members of , each fixed lies below one of those members.
For , continuity of the filtrations gives both inclusions needed for
The isomorphism therefore preserves whether the complementary final segment has a least point. Consequently
This club agreement of countable filtrations proves the invariant: if is stationary, the orders cannot be isomorphic.
We also construct enough pairwise different stationary encodings. For each , fix an injection , and set
For fixed , these sets partition the stationary tail . At least one is stationary: otherwise choose a club avoiding each one and intersect the countably many clubs to obtain a club avoiding the entire tail. The countable-intersection fact follows directly: above any starting point choose an increasing sequence, visiting each club infinitely often; its countable supremum belongs to every club by closure. For each let be the least such . One value occurs for uncountably many , since a countable union of countable sets is countable. For that fixed the cells are pairwise disjoint, by injectivity of . Enumerating those cells gives
a family of pairwise disjoint stationary subsets of . This is the explicit Ulam matrix on omega-one proof of disjoint stationary subsets of omega-one.
For put . If , their symmetric difference contains an entire and is stationary. The stationary encoding in an aleph-one-like dense order therefore produces pairwise nonisomorphic orders .
Finally, on a fixed carrier of size , every total order is a subset of its Cartesian square. That square has size , so there are at most possible relations. Thus
A kappa-filtration is an increasing continuous sequence with union and at every stage. Intersect with the club set of nonzero limit ordinals. For each remaining , continuity gives , so choose with . This is a regressive function. Fodor lemma gives a stationary subset and a fixed such that all these values lie in .
Since , partition into fewer than fibers of . If every fiber were nonstationary, choose a club set avoiding each one. Their intersection is club set by regularity, contradicting stationarity of . Thus one fiber is stationary, and
This proves the filtration form of Fodor lemma; continuity at limit stages, the small size of each stage, and regularity of are all used.