Fodor's lemma
Concept in mathematical set theory
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In mathematics, particularly in set theory, Fodor's lemma (or the pressing-down lemma) states:
Fodor's lemma—If is a regular, uncountable cardinal, is a stationary subset of , and is regressive (that is, for any , ) then there is some and some stationary such that for any .
In modern parlance, the nonstationary ideal is normal. The lemma was first proved by the Hungarian set theorist, Géza Fodor in 1956.
We can assume that (by removing 0, if necessary). If Fodor's lemma is false, for every there is some club set such that . Let . The club sets are closed under diagonal intersection, so is also club and therefore there is some . Then for each , and so there can be no such that , so , a contradiction.
There is a Fodor's lemma for trees:
Fodor's lemma for trees—For every non-special tree and regressive mapping (that is, , with respect to the order on , for every , ), there is a non-special subtree on which is constant.
Fodor's lemma also holds for Thomas Jech's notion of stationary sets as well as for the general notion of stationary set.
References
- Hrbacek, Karel; Jech, Thomas (1999). "Chapter 11, Section 3". Introduction to Set Theory, Revised and Expanded (3rd ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press. ISBN 9780824779153.
- Howard, Mark (March 1989). "Applications of Fodor's lemma to Vaught's conjecture". Annals of Pure and Applied Logic. 42 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1016/0168-0072(89)90063-8.
- Preliminary version of an unpublished book: Thomas, Simon. "The Automorphism Tower Problem" (PDF). Rutgers University. Retrieved 2026-04-12.
- Todorcevic, Stevo (March 2011). "Combinatorial Dichotomies in Set Theory". The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. 17 (1): 1–72. doi:10.2178/bsl/1294186662. ISSN 1079-8986.
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