Hyperreal Number - The Transfer Principle

The Transfer Principle

The idea of the hyperreal system is to extend the real numbers R to form a system *R that includes infinitesimal and infinite numbers, but without changing any of the elementary axioms of algebra. Any statement of the form "for any number x..." that is true for the reals is also true for the hyperreals. For example, the axiom that states "for any number x, x + 0 = x" still applies. The same is true for quantification over several numbers, e.g., "for any numbers x and y, xy = yx." This ability to carry over statements from the reals to the hyperreals is called the transfer principle. However, statements of the form "for any set of numbers S ..." may not carry over. The only properties that differ between the reals and the hyperreals are those that rely on quantification over sets, or other higher-level structures such as functions and relations, which are typically constructed out of sets. Each real set, function, and relation has its natural hyperreal extension, satisfying the same first-order properties. The kinds of logical sentences that obey this restriction on quantification are referred to as statements in first-order logic.

The transfer principle, however, doesn't mean that R and *R have identical behavior. For instance, in *R there exists an element ω such that

but there is no such number in R. This is possible because the existence of such a number cannot be expressed as a first order statement.