In mathematics, a measurable cardinal is a certain kind of large cardinal number. In order to define the concept, one introduces a two-valued measure on a cardinal , or more generally on any set. For a cardinal , it can be described as a subdivision of all of its subsets into large and small sets such that itself is large, and all singletons are small, complements of small sets are large and vice versa. The intersection of fewer than large sets is again large. It turns out that uncountable cardinals endowed with a two-valued measure are large cardinals whose existence cannot be proved from ZFC. The concept of a measurable cardinal was introduced by Stanislaw Ulam in 1930. Definition Formally, a measurable cardinal is an uncountable cardinal number κ such that there exists a κ-additive, non-trivial, 0-1-valued measure on the power set of κ. (Here the term κ-additive means that, for any sequence Aα, α<λ of cardinality λ < κ, Aα being pairwise disjoint sets of ordinals less than κ, the measure of the union of the Aα equals the sum of the measures of the individual Aα.) Equivalently, κ is measurable means that it is the critical point of a non-trivial elementary embedding of the universe V into a transitive class M. This equivalence is due to Jerome Keisler and Dana Scott, and uses the ultrapower construction from model theory. Since V is a proper class, a technical problem that is not usually present when considering ultrapowers needs to be addressed, by what is now called Scott's trick. Equivalently, κ is a measurable cardinal if and only if it is an uncountable cardinal with a -complete, non-principal ultrafilter. Again, this means that the intersection of any strictly less than κ-many sets in the ultrafilter, is also in the ultrafilter. Properties Although it follows from ZFC that every measurable cardinal is inaccessible (and is ineffable, Ramsey, etc.), it is consistent with ZF that a measurable cardinal can be a successor cardinal. It follows from ZF + axiom of determinacy that ω1 is measurable, and that every subset of ω1 contains or is disjoint from a closed and unbounded subset. Ulam showed that the smallest cardinal κ that admits a non-trivial countably-additive two-valued measure must in fact admit a κ-additive measure. (If there were some collection of fewer than κ measure-0 subsets whose union was κ, then the induced measure on