The small Veblen ordinal or or is the limit of ordinals that can be described using a version of Veblen functions with finitely many arguments. It is the ordinal that measures the strength of Kruskal's theorem. It is also the ordinal type of a certain ordering of rooted trees (Jervell 2005).
Famous quotes containing the word small:
“But still the delicate slips keep coaxing up water;
The small cells bulge;
One nub of growth
Nudges a sand-crumb loose,”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)