Partially Ordered Sets Mathematics

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How can you explain partial order and total order in
simple terms? What is the dierence between partial ordering and
total ordering?

What is the actual signicance of partial ordering and

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How do I determine the relation R of partial order on

2 Answers
Tikhon Jelvis, Operations Research in Haskell at Target
Answered Apr 21, 2014 Upvoted by Senia Sheydvasser, PhD student in Mathematics
and Adam Merberg, Ph.D. Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley
An order is just a way of telling when something is smaller than something else. We have a
the set A=Z and aRb if and only if b^2/a?
What is the order of S, i.e. the value of N? What is the
length of the convolved sequence in terms of L and
M?
Can a strict order relation be of total order and/or of
partial order?

bunch of stu like numbers (1,2,3...) and a way to compare them (). We can say that 1 2, 2
Why are totally ordered sets, where all subsets have a
3, 1 3, 1 1 and so on. Perfectly natural. least element, called well ordered?

Numbers have a total order because, given two numbers, one is always less than or equal to What is the Monster group in simple terms?
the other. It doesn't matter which two numbers we pick: they're either equal, or one is
Dene the relation R on the Z by aRb if a-b is a
smaller. So a total order is just like for numbers.
nonnegative integer. Verify that R denes a partial
order for Z, is the order a total orde...
A partial order is one where this is not the case. Sometimes we can't compare two items at
all: they're not equal, smaller or larger than each other! Take books, for example. I'm a bit
fussy, so I always stack my books with the biggest ones on the bottom:

However, books have two dimensions: a height and a width. And publishers are perfectly
happy to abuse this! So sometimes I have two books of dierent sizes, with neither one
being the largest. One is longer but the other is wider.
What do I do? I have no good answer. But it does illustrate the idea of a partial order well:
some books are smaller than others or equal in size, but some are dierent and yet neither
smaller nor larger.
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Related Questions More Answers Below

What is the dierence between partial ordering and total ordering?

What is the actual signicance of partial ordering and total ordering?

How can I determine that a Relation R is a Partial Ordered on a Set?

What is order 21 rule 103?

How do I determine the relation R of partial order on the set A=Z and aRb if and only if
b^2/a?

Lewis Morgan, studied at University of Oxford

Answered Sep 24, 2013

Disclaimer: The below is targeted at the average (reasonably intelligent) person who may
know very little about maths indeed, and so glosses over a couple of formalities. If I've
underestimated the asker's ability, I'm happy to put in more rigour.

Let's start by explaining a total order. A total order can be thought of intuitively as an order
(in the non-technical sense) on the set of things we're considering - this one comes rst,
then this one, and so on. This intuition breaks down a bit when we consider innite
collections of things, but it'll do. For example, the letters have a total order on them: A
comes rst, then B, then C...
The key properties this order must have are:
Transitivity - if x comes before y, and y comes before z, then x comes before z.
Totality - either x comes before y, or y comes before x.
Asymmetry - if x comes before y, then y doesn't come before x.
(note: whether 'asymmetry' or 'antisymmetry' is correct here depends on whether we're
working with strict or weak orders, but it doesn't really matter and would only complicate
things to go into the detail).

The total order you're probably most familiar with is 'less than' on the natural numbers: 1 is
less than 2, which is less than 3, and so on. If we draw a total order, it looks just like a long
line of objects (again, in the nite case at least).

Now, partial orders are similar, but are a bit more relaxed about things. They don't want to
line things up in a xed, rigid order - they just want certain things to come before certain
other things. They might not mind which comes rst out of x and y, so long as x comes
before z.
A partial order must still be transitive and asymmetric, but we no longer require totality.
An example of a partial order is "is an ancestor of" on the set of all humans that have ever
lived. My grandfather is an ancestor of my father, and my father is an ancestor of me, so my
grandfather is an ancestor of me (by transitivity). Also, because my father is an ancestor of
me, I'm not an ancestor of my father (by asymmetry). There might be people who are not
ancestors of each other at all - such as my father and my mother.

A partial order might not look like a long line - it might instead look like a tree, or a lattice,
with places where the order splits or re-combines. As another example, the diagram below
shows the subsets of the set [Math Processing Error], which are partially ordered by "is a
subset of". [Math Processing Error] is a subset of [Math Processing Error], and is also a
subset of [Math Processing Error], but neither of these latter is a subset of each other.
However, each is a subset of [Math Processing Error].

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Related Questions

What is the order of S, i.e. the value of N? What is the length of the convolved sequence
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Can a strict order relation be of total order and/or of partial order?

Why are totally ordered sets, where all subsets have a least element, called well
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