structural:reformatting
Ordinals extend the natural numbers

A natural number (which, in this context, includes the number 0) can be used for two purposes: to describe the size of a set, or to describe the position of an element in a sequence. When restricted to finite sets, these two concepts coincide, since all linear orders of a finite set are isomorphic.

When dealing with infinite sets, however, one has to distinguish between the notion of size, which leads to cardinal numbers, and the notion of position, which leads to the ordinal numbers described here. This is because while any set has only one size (its cardinality), there are many nonisomorphic well-orderings of any infinite set, as explained below.

Whereas the notion of cardinal number is associated with a set with no particular structure on it, the ordinals are intimately linked with the special kind of sets that are called well-ordered. A well-ordered set is a totally ordered set in which every non-empty subset has a least element (a totally ordered set is an ordered set such that, given two distinct elements, one is less than the other). Equivalently, assuming the axiom of dependent choice, it is a totally ordered set without any infinite decreasing sequence — though there may be infinite increasing sequences. Ordinals may be used to label the elements of any given well-ordered set (the smallest element being labelled 0, the one after that 1, the next one 2, "and so on"), and to measure the "length" of the whole set by the least ordinal that is not a label for an element of the set. This "length" is called the order type of the set.

Any ordinal is defined by the set of ordinals that precede it. In fact, the most common definition of ordinals identifies each ordinal as the set of ordinals that precede it. For example, the ordinal 42 is generally identified as the set {0, 1, 2,..., 41}. Conversely, any set S of ordinals that is downward closed — meaning that for any ordinal α in S and any ordinal β < α, β is also in S — is (or can be identified with) an ordinal.

This definition of ordinals in terms of sets allows for infinite ordinals. The smallest infinite ordinal is ω {\displaystyle \omega }, which can be identified with the set of natural numbers (so that the ordinal associated with every natural number precedes ω {\displaystyle \omega }). Indeed, the set of natural numbers is well-ordered—as is any set of ordinals—and since it is downward closed, it can be identified with the ordinal associated with it.

Perhaps a clearer intuition of ordinals can be formed by examining a first few of them: as mentioned above, they start with the natural numbers, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,... After all natural numbers comes the first infinite ordinal, ω, and after that come ω+1, ω+2, ω+3, and so on. (Exactly what addition means will be defined later on: just consider them as names.) After all of these come ω·2 (which is ω+ω), ω·2+1, ω·2+2, and so on, then ω·3, and then later on ω·4. Now the set of ordinals formed in this way (the ω· m + n, where m and n are natural numbers) must itself have an ordinal associated with it: and that is ω. Further on, there will be ω, then ω, and so on, and ω, then ω, then later ω, and even later ε (epsilon nought) (to give a few examples of relatively small—countable—ordinals). This can be continued indefinitely (as every time one says "and so on" when enumerating ordinals, it defines a larger ordinal). The smallest uncountable ordinal is the set of all countable ordinals, expressed as ω or Ω {\displaystyle \Omega }.