Existence of an uncountable well-ordered set with a certain property

elementary-set-theory

I want to find $Y$ an uncountable well-ordered set with the property that for any element in $Y$ there are at most countably many elements less than it.

My attempt: I'm assuming the existence of $X$ an uncountable well-ordered set by the well-ordering theorem. My idea was to take $\mathcal{A}:= \{ X' \subseteq X: X\setminus X' \textrm{ is at most countable} \}$ and then $Y:= \{ \min X': X' \in \mathcal{A} \}$. This would automatically make $Y$ well-ordered and satisfy the additional property. However, I can't prove that this $Y$ is uncountable.

Best Answer

For an uncountable well-order $(X,<)$ and define $C= \{x \in X\mid \{y \in X\mid y < x\} \text{ uncountable }\}$. If this set happens to be empty then $X$ itself is as required. If not, let $c_0 = \min C \in X$ which exists as $(X,<)$ is a well-order and let $Y = \{x \in C\mid x < c_0\}$ in the inherited order and $Y$ is then clearly as required, by minimality of $c_0$.