# Could someone help me understand Well-Founded sets?

I'm trying to figure out how to determine if a set is well-founded. From my class I am given this:

Suppose (S, $\le$) is a Partial Order Set:

$\le$ is said to be Well-Founded $\iff$ every nonempty subset of S has a minimal element (the minimal condition). This definition is equivalent to the following one: There is no infinite descending sequence, i.e., there is no infinite subset {$x_1$, $x_2$, $x_3$, ... } such that ... $\le$ $x_3$ $\le$ $x_2$ $\le$ $x_1$

Pretty much I don't understand the above. There's also Well-Ordered, but to my understanding from my class, it's pretty much the same as the above, except the set is a Total Ordered Set instead of a Partial Order Set. In other words, Total Ordered Set + Well-Founded = Well-Ordered.

Here's an example I hope someone could help me work through and understand:

Is this relation set Well-Founded, Well-Ordered, or Neither?
($\Bbb N$, $\le$)
This set is reflexive, transitive, and antisymmetric. Thus it is a Partial Ordered Set. Furthermore, the set is a Total Order Set because for every two elements, they are comparable.

After this I'm stuck.

Thanks for the help in advance!

EDIT: Gonna try at Asaf Karagila's hint

Proof by induction:
Suppose that $A$ is a subset of $\Bbb N$ without a minimal element

$0 \notin A$
Because for the minimal element implication, $0 \le 0 \Rightarrow 0=0$, is true, and for all other implications
($1 \le 0 \Rightarrow 1=0, 2 \le 0 \Rightarrow 2=0, ...)$
The implication is true (since the left inequality is false; implication is always true)

Assume $n \notin A$
This means $n$ is a minimal element. For $n$ to be a minimal element, any element smaller than $n$ (such as $n-1, n-2, ...$) does not exist in A. If they did, for example $(n-1)$, we would find the implication for the minimal element, $(n-1) \le n \Rightarrow$ n = (n-1) false, which would make $n$ not a minimal element, causing it to exist in A.

$(n+1) \notin A$ Proof:
The previous assumption causes (n+1) to be the smallest element. If $(n+1)$ is the smallest element, we can see that the Minimal Element Implication is true for all cases.
$(n+1) \le (n+1) \Rightarrow (n+1)=(n+1)$   True
$(n+2) \le (n+1) \Rightarrow (n+1)=(n+2)$   True
(Left side is false, causing implication to be true)

Therefore, $\Bbb N\cap A=\varnothing$. Or in other words, there are no nonempty subsets without a Minimal Element

That was my shot at it. It might sound a little weird/being a bit wrong, but I tried.

HINT: Suppose that $A$ is a subset of $\Bbb N$ without a minimal element. Prove by induction on $n$ that $A$ is empty (clearly $0\notin A$; and if $n\notin A$ conclude somehow that $n+1\notin A$; therefore $\Bbb N\cap A=\varnothing$).