The rigid relation principle, a new weak choice principle

Abstract

AbstractThe rigid relation principle, introduced in this article, asserts that every set admits a rigid binary relation. This follows from the axiom of choice, because well‐orders are rigid, but we prove that it is neither equivalent to the axiom of choice nor provable in Zermelo‐Fraenkel set theory without the axiom of choice. Thus, it is a new weak choice principle. Nevertheless, the restriction of the principle to sets of reals (among other general instances) is provable without the axiom of choice.