History
According to Hodges (1993):
- Back-and-forth methods are often ascribed to Cantor, Bertrand Russell and C. H. Langford, but there is no evidence to support any of these attributions.
While the theorem on countable densely ordered sets is due to Cantor (1895), the back-and-forth method with which it is now proved was developed by Huntington (1904) and Hausdorff (1914). Later it was applied in other situations, most notably by Roland Fraïssé in model theory.
See also: Ehrenfeucht–Fraïssé game.
Read more about this topic: Back-and-forth Method
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