Ordinals in $L$, the constructible universe

descriptive-set-theorymodel-theoryordinalsset-theory

I am trying to understand the constructible universe $L$. Based on the way it is constructed, it is clear that every ordinal is included in $L$, i.e., $\alpha \subset L$ for any ordinal $\alpha$. However, it is not clear to me whether $\alpha \in L$ or not for an arbitrary ordinal $\alpha$. In Jech's book Set Theory, the author says "$L$ is an inner model of ZF and contains all ordinals…" (these are not his exact words but same idea). Does the word contain in the previous sentence mean include or for any ordinal $\alpha$ we have $\alpha \in L$?

Any help will be greatly appreciated it. Thanks!

Best Answer

Yes, $L$ contains all the ordinals as elements. In fact this follows from what you already know (that $L$ contains all the ordinals as subsets): since smaller ordinals are elements of larger ordinals, for every class $X$ and ordinal $\alpha$ we have that if $\alpha+1\subseteq X$ then $\alpha\in X$. So the "ambiguity" around the notion of containment here, isn't.

A bit more explicitly, you can show by transfinite induction that $\alpha\in L_{\alpha+1}\setminus L_\alpha$ for each ordinal $\alpha$. So this tells us exactly when each ordinal appears in $L$. Note that this exactly matches the behavior of the $V$-hierarchy: in general $L_\alpha$ is always "as tall as" $V_\alpha$ but usually much "narrower" (even if $V=L$ - note that $L_\alpha$ is countable whenever $\alpha$ is countable, while $V_{\omega+1}$ already has size continuum).

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