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Chain

Let $P$ be a finite Partially Ordered Set. A chain in $P$ is a set of pairwise comparable elements (i.e., a Totally Ordered subset). The Length of $P$ is the maximum Cardinality of a chain in $P$. For a Partial Order, the size of the longest chain is called the Length.

See also Addition Chain, Antichain, Brauer Chain, Chain (Graph), Dilworth's Lemma, Hansen Chain




© 1996-9 Eric W. Weisstein
1999-05-26