With these definitions in hand, Cantor's isomorphism theorem states that every two unbounded countable dense linear orders are order-isomorphic.
Within the rational numbers, certain subsets are also countable, unbounded, and dense. The rational numbers in the open unit interval are an example. Another example is the set of dyadic rational numbers, the numbers that can be expressed as a fraction with an integer numerator and a power of two as the denominator. By Cantor's isomorphism theorem, the dyadic rational numbers are order-isomorphic to the whole set of rational numbers. In this example, an explicit order isomorphism is provided by Minkowski's question-mark function. Another example of a countable unbounded dense linear order is given by the set of real algebraic numbers, the real roots of polynomials with integer coefficients. In this case, they are a superset of the rational numbers, but are again order-isomorphic. It is also possible to apply the theorem to other linear orders whose elements are not defined as numbers. For instance, the binary strings that end in a 1, in their lexicographic order, form another isomorphic ordering.
One proof of Cantor's isomorphism theorem, in some sources called "the standard proof", uses the back-and-forth method. This proof builds up an isomorphism between any two given orders, using a greedy algorithm, in an ordering given by a countable enumeration of the two orderings. In more detail, the proof maintains two order-isomorphic finite subsets
A
{\displaystyle A}
and
B
{\displaystyle B}
of the two given orders, initially empty. It repeatedly increases the sizes of
A
{\displaystyle A}
and
B
{\displaystyle B}
by adding a new element from one order, the first missing element in its enumeration, and matching it with an order-equivalent element of the other order, proven to exist using the density and lack of endpoints of the order. The two orderings switch roles at each step: the proof finds the first missing element of the first order, adds it to
A
{\displaystyle A}
, matches it with an element of the second order, and adds it to
B
{\displaystyle B}
; then it finds the first missing element of the second order, adds it to
B
{\displaystyle B}
, matches it with an element of the first order, and adds it to
A
{\displaystyle A}
, etc. Every element of each ordering is eventually matched with an order-equivalent element of the other ordering, so the two orderings are isomorphic.
Although the back-and-forth method has also been attributed to Cantor, Cantor's original publication of this theorem in 1895–1897 used a different proof. In an investigation of the history of this theorem by logician Charles L. Silver, the earliest instance of the back-and-forth proof found by Silver was in a 1914 textbook by Felix Hausdorff, his Grundzüge der Mengenlehre.
Instead of building up order-isomorphic subsets
A
{\displaystyle A}
and
B
{\displaystyle B}
by going "back and forth" between the enumeration for the first order and the enumeration for the second order, Cantor's original proof only uses the "going forth" half of the back-and-forth method. It repeatedly augments the two finite sets
A
{\displaystyle A}
and
B
{\displaystyle B}
by adding to
A
{\displaystyle A}
the first missing element of the first order's enumeration, and adding to
B
{\displaystyle B}
the order-equivalent element that is first in the second order's enumeration. This naturally finds an equivalence between the first ordering and a subset of the second ordering, and Cantor then argues that the entire second ordering is included.
A model of this theory is any system of elements and a comparison relation that obeys all of the axioms; it is a countable model when the system of elements forms a countable set. For instance, the usual comparison relation on the rational numbers is a countable model of this theory. Cantor's isomorphism theorem can be expressed by saying that the first-order theory of unbounded dense linear orders is countably categorical: it has only one countable model, up to logical equivalence. However, it is not categorical for higher cardinalities: for any higher cardinality, there are multiple inequivalent dense unbounded linear orders with the same cardinality.
The same back-and-forth method used to prove Cantor's isomorphism theorem also proves that countable dense linear orders are highly symmetric. Their symmetries are called order automorphisms, and consist of order-preserving bijections from the whole linear order to itself. By the back-and-forth method, every countable dense linear order has order automorphisms that map any set of
k
{\displaystyle k}
points to any other set of
k
{\displaystyle k}
points. This can also be proven directly for the ordering on the rationals, by constructing a piecewise linear order automorphism with breakpoints at the
k
{\displaystyle k}
given points. This equivalence of all
k
{\displaystyle k}
-element sets of points is summarized by saying that the group of symmetries of a countable dense linear order is "highly homogeneous". However, there is no order automorphism that maps an ordered pair of points to its reverse, so these symmetries do not form a 2-transitive group.
The isomorphism theorem can be extended to colorings of an unbounded dense countable linear ordering, with a finite or countable set of colors, such that each color is dense, in the sense that a point of that color exists between any other two points of the whole ordering. The subsets of points with each color partition the order into a family of unbounded dense countable linear orderings. Any partition of an unbounded dense countable linear orderings into subsets, with the property that each subset is unbounded (within the whole set, not just in itself) and dense (again, within the whole set) comes from a coloring in this way. Each two colorings with the same number of colors are order-isomorphic, under any permutation of their colors. Bhattacharjee et al. (1997) give as an example the partition of the rational numbers into the dyadic rationals and their complement; these two sets are dense in each other, and their union has an order isomorphism to any other pair of unbounded linear orders that are countable and dense in each other. Unlike Cantor's isomorphism theorem, the proof needs the full back-and-forth argument, and not just the "going forth" argument.
Although uncountable unbounded dense orderings may not be order-isomorphic, it follows from the back-and-forth method that any two such orderings are elementarily equivalent. Another consequence of Cantor's proof is that every finite or countable linear order can be embedded into the rationals, or into any unbounded dense ordering. Calling this a "well known" result of Cantor, Wacław Sierpiński proved an analogous result for higher cardinality: assuming the continuum hypothesis, there exists a linear ordering of cardinality
ℵ
1
{\displaystyle \aleph _{1}}
into which all other linear orderings of cardinality
ℵ
1
{\displaystyle \aleph _{1}}
can be embedded. Baumgartner's axiom, formulated by James Earl Baumgartner in 1973 to study the continuum hypothesis, concerns
ℵ
1
{\displaystyle \aleph _{1}}
-dense sets of real numbers, unbounded sets with the property that every two elements are separated by exactly
ℵ
1
{\displaystyle \aleph _{1}}
other elements. It states that each two such sets are order-isomorphic, providing in this way another higher-cardinality analogue of Cantor's isomorphism theorem (
ℵ
1
{\displaystyle \aleph _{1}}
is defined as the cardinality of the set of all countable ordinals). Baumgartner's axiom is consistent with ZFC and the negation of the continuum hypothesis, and implied by the proper forcing axiom, but independent of Martin's axiom.
Sierpiński's theorem stating that any two countable metric spaces without isolated points are homeomorphic can be seen as a topological analogue of Cantor's isomorphism theorem, and can be proved using a similar back-and-forth argument.
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For this axiomatization of strict linear orders, see: Goldrei, Derek (2005), Propositional and Predicate Calculus: A Model of Argument, Springer, p. 193, ISBN 9781846282294. The axioms can be formulated logically using either a strict comparison
<
{\displaystyle <}
or a non-strict comparison
≤
{\displaystyle \leq }
but the strict comparison simplifies the expression of the axioms for the properties of being unbounded and dense. Note that it is not necessary to specify that these orders are antisymmetric, that is, that
a
<
b
⇒
¬
(
b
<
a
)
{\displaystyle a9781846282294
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{\displaystyle \aleph _{1}}
-dense sets of reals can be isomorphic", Fundamenta Mathematicae, 79 (2): 101–106, doi:10.4064/fm-79-2-101-106, MR 0317934 /wiki/James_Earl_Baumgartner
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{\displaystyle \aleph _{1}}
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