Total and Partial Ordering
Today, I want to talk about a mathematical concept useful in life:
Total ordering is where all the options can be ranked in order of how they are. For example, if you’re buying forex for a trip abroad, you can rank all the providers by how much they’ll charge you in rupees to give you $500. You can start with any number of options and you’ll end up with one best option.
Partial ordering is where among options A, B and C, you can say that A is better than B, but you can’t say that for A vs C or B vs C. For example, if I’m buying a vehicle, A and B may be cars (say the Creta and the Elevate) and C may be a scooter. I can say that the Creta is better than the Elevate, but I can’t compare a scooter and a car and say that one is better. We started with {Creta, Elevate, scooter} and ended up with {Creta, scooter}. There are multiple best options.