Question about Partially Ordered Sets and functions

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Could someone verify my attempt at the following problem?

Let $(A,\preceq)$ and $(B, \preceq ')$ be Partially ordered sets and suppose that $h:A \rightarrow B$ satisfies $x \preceq y \iff h(x) \preceq 'h(y)$ for all $x,y \in A$.Prove that h is one-to-one.

Attempt:

Let $(A,\preceq)$ and $(B, \preceq ')$ be POSETS and suppose that $h:A \rightarrow B$ satisfies $x \preceq y \iff h(x)\preceq 'h(y)$ for all $x,y \in A$.

Suppose for a contradiction that $h$ is not one-to-one,then there exists some $x,y \in A$ such that (i) $h(x)=h(y)$ and $x\neq y$.

By anti-symmetry,if $x \preceq y$ and $y \preceq x$ then $x=y$. The logically equivalent contraposition suggests that if $x \neq y$ then $ x \npreceq y$ or $y \npreceq x$.

Since $x \neq y$ by (i) then the following divison by cases are possible.

[case : $x \npreceq y$ and $y \preceq x$]

by $x \preceq y \iff h(x)\preceq 'h(y)$ the following holds :

  • $x \npreceq y$ implies $h(x)\npreceq 'h(y)$ and
  • $y \preceq x$ implies $h(y)\preceq 'h(x)$

therefore with $h(x)\npreceq 'h(y)$ and $h(y)\preceq 'h(x)$ then $h(x) \neq h(y)$ which contradicts (i) according to which $h(x)=h(y)$

[case : $x \preceq y$ and $y \npreceq x$]

..similar as the previous case

[case : $x \npreceq y$ and $y \npreceq x$]

by $x \preceq y \iff h(x)\preceq 'h(y)$ the following holds :

  • $x \npreceq y$ implies $h(x)\npreceq 'h(y)$ and
  • $y \npreceq x$ implies $h(y)\npreceq 'h(x)$

therefore with $h(x)\npreceq 'h(y)$ and $h(y)\npreceq 'h(x)$ then $h(x) \neq h(y)$ which contradicts (i) according to which $h(x)=h(y)$.

Therefore h is one-to-one.


it looks right but feels iffy to me because for each of the cases i conclude that $h(x) \neq h(y)$ on the bases that

if $h(x) \preceq 'h(y)$ and $h(y)\preceq 'h(x)$ then $h(x)=h(y)$.

where for example in the last case, $h(x)\npreceq 'h(y)$ and $h(y)\npreceq 'h(x)$ was implied to yield $h(x) \neq h(y)$ ...is that logically right ?

thank you for your time.

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You don't really need proof by contradiction

$$h(x)=h(y)$$ $$\Longrightarrow h(x)\preceq^{\prime}h(y)\:\land\:h(y)\preceq^{\prime}h(x)$$ $$\Longrightarrow x\preceq y\:\land\:y\preceq x$$ $$\Longrightarrow x=y$$