Well-founded relation

Transitive binary relations

	Symmetric	Antisymmetric	Connected	Well-founded	Has joins	Has meets	Reflexive	Irreflexive	Asymmetric
			Total, Semiconnex					Anti- reflexive
Equivalence relation	Y	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗
Preorder (Quasiorder)	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗
Partial order	✗	Y	✗	✗	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗
Total preorder	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗
Total order	✗	Y	Y	✗	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗
Prewellordering	✗	✗	Y	Y	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗
Well-quasi-ordering	✗	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗
Well-ordering	✗	Y	Y	Y	✗	✗	Y	✗	✗
Lattice	✗	Y	✗	✗	Y	Y	Y	✗	✗
Join-semilattice	✗	Y	✗	✗	Y	✗	Y	✗	✗
Meet-semilattice	✗	Y	✗	✗	✗	Y	Y	✗	✗
Strict partial order	✗	Y	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	Y	Y
Strict weak order	✗	Y	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	Y	Y
Strict total order	✗	Y	Y	✗	✗	✗	✗	Y	Y
	Symmetric	Antisymmetric	Connected	Well-founded	Has joins	Has meets	Reflexive	Irreflexive	Asymmetric
Definitions, for all $a,b$ and $S\neq \varnothing :$	${\begin{aligned}&aRb\\\Rightarrow {}&bRa\end{aligned}}$	${\begin{aligned}aRb{\text{ and }}&bRa\\\Rightarrow a={}&b\end{aligned}}$	${\begin{aligned}a\neq {}&b\Rightarrow \\aRb{\text{ or }}&bRa\end{aligned}}$	${\begin{aligned}\min S\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}$	${\begin{aligned}a\vee b\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}$	${\begin{aligned}a\wedge b\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}$	$aRa$	${\text{not }}aRa$	${\begin{aligned}aRb\Rightarrow \\{\text{not }}bRa\end{aligned}}$

indicates that the column's property is always true the row's term (at the very left), while ✗ indicates that the property is not guaranteed in general (it might, or might not, hold). For example, that every equivalence relation is symmetric, but not necessarily antisymmetric, is indicated by

in the "Symmetric" column and ✗ in the "Antisymmetric" column, respectively.

All definitions tacitly require the homogeneous relation $R$ be transitive: for all $a,b,c,$ if $aRb$ and $bRc$ then $aRc.$
A term's definition may require additional properties that are not listed in this table.

In mathematics, a binary relation $R$ is called well-founded (or wellfounded or foundational^[1]) on a set or, more generally, a class $X$ if every non-empty subset $S \subseteq X$ has a minimal element with respect to $R$ ; that is, there exists an $m \in S$ such that, for every $s \in S$ , one does not have $s R m$ . In other words, a relation is well founded if:

(\forall S\subseteq X)\;[S\neq \varnothing \implies (\exists m\in S)(\forall s\in S)\lnot (s\mathrel {R} m)].

Some authors include an extra condition that

R

is set-like, i.e., that the elements less than any given element form a set.

Equivalently, assuming the axiom of dependent choice, a relation is well-founded when it contains no infinite descending chains, which can be proved when there is no infinite sequence $x 0, x 1, x 2, ...$ of elements of $X$ such that $x n +1 R x n$ for every natural number $n$ .^[2]^[3]

In order theory, a partial order is called well-founded if the corresponding strict order is a well-founded relation. If the order is a total order then it is called a well-order.

In set theory, a set $x$ is called a well-founded set if the set membership relation is well-founded on the transitive closure of $x$ . The axiom of regularity, which is one of the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, asserts that all sets are well-founded.

A relation $R$ is converse well-founded, upwards well-founded or Noetherian on $X$ , if the converse relation $R -1$ is well-founded on $X$ . In this case $R$ is also said to satisfy the ascending chain condition. In the context of rewriting systems, a Noetherian relation is also called terminating.

^ See Definition 6.21 in Zaring W.M., G. Takeuti (1971). Introduction to axiomatic set theory (2nd, rev. ed.). New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 0387900241.
^ "Infinite Sequence Property of Strictly Well-Founded Relation". ProofWiki. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
^ Fraisse, R. (15 December 2000). Theory of Relations, Volume 145 - 1st Edition (1st ed.). Elsevier. p. 46. ISBN 9780444505422. Retrieved 20 February 2019.

[1] See Definition 6.21 in Zaring W.M., G. Takeuti (1971). Introduction to axiomatic set theory (2nd, rev. ed.). New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 0387900241.

[2] "Infinite Sequence Property of Strictly Well-Founded Relation". ProofWiki. Retrieved 10 May 2021.

[3] Fraisse, R. (15 December 2000). Theory of Relations, Volume 145 - 1st Edition (1st ed.). Elsevier. p. 46. ISBN 9780444505422. Retrieved 20 February 2019.

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