Page:Cantortransfinite.djvu/106

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OF TRANSFINITE NUMBERS
87

of the other. To every part of there corresponds, then, a definite equivalent part of , and inversely.

If we have such a law of co-ordination of two equivalent aggregates, then, apart from the case when each of them consists only of one element, we can modify this law in many ways. We can, for instance, always take care that to a special element of a special element of corresponds. For if, according to the original law, the elements and do not correspond to one another, but to the element of the element of corresponds, and to the element of the element of corresponds, we take the modified law according to which corresponds to and to and for the other elements the original law remains unaltered. By this means the end is attained.

Every aggregate is equivalent to itself:

(5)

If two aggregates are equivalent to a third, they are equivalent to one another; that is to say:

(6)
from and follows .

Of fundamental importance is the theorem that two aggregates M and N have the same cardinal number if, and only if, they are equivalent: thus,

(7)
from we get ,

and

(8)
from we get .

Thus the equivalence of aggregates forms the neces-