as a shorthand way of saying that every partition of the set of -element subsets of into pieces has a homogeneous set of order type . A homogeneous set is in this case a subset of such that every -element subset is in the same element of the partition. When is 2 it is often omitted. Such statements are known as partition relations.
Assuming the axiom of choice, there are no ordinals with , so is usually taken to be finite. An extension where is almost allowed to be infinite is the notation
which is a shorthand way of saying that every partition of the set of finite subsets of into pieces has a subset of order type such that for any finite , all subsets of size are in the same element of the partition. When is 2 it is often omitted.
Another variation is the notation
which is a shorthand way of saying that every coloring of the set of -element subsets of with 2 colors has a subset of order type such that all elements of have the first color, or a subset of order type such that all elements of have the second color.
Some properties of this include: (in what follows is a cardinal)
In choiceless universes, partition properties with infinite exponents may hold, and some of them are obtained as consequences of the axiom of determinacy (AD). For example, Donald A. Martin proved that AD implies
Strong colorings
Wacław Sierpiński showed that the Ramsey theorem does not extend to sets of size by showing that . That is, Sierpiński constructed a coloring of pairs of real numbers into two colors such that for every uncountable subset of real numbers , takes both colors. Taking any set of real numbers of size and applying the coloring of Sierpiński to it, we get that . Colorings such as this are known as strong colorings[3] and studied in set theory. Erdős, Hajnal & Rado (1965) introduced a similar notation as above for this.
Write for ordinals, for a cardinal number (finite or infinite) and for a natural number. Then
is a shorthand way of saying that there exists a coloring of the set of -element subsets of into pieces such that every set of order type is a rainbow set. A rainbow set is in this case a subset of such that takes all colors. When is 2 it is often omitted. Such statements are known as negative square bracket partition relations.
Another variation is the notation
which is a shorthand way of saying that there exists a coloring of the set of 2-element subsets of with colors such that for every subset of order type and every subset of order type , the set takes all colors.
Some properties of this include: (in what follows is a cardinal)
Erdős, Paul; Hajnal, András (1971), "Unsolved problems in set theory", Axiomatic Set Theory ( Univ. California, Los Angeles, Calif., 1967), Proc. Sympos. Pure Math, vol. XIII Part I, Providence, R.I.: Amer. Math. Soc., pp. 17–48, MR0280381
Erdős, Paul; Hajnal, András; Máté, Attila; Rado, Richard (1984), Combinatorial set theory: partition relations for cardinals, Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics, vol. 106, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., ISBN0-444-86157-2, MR0795592