In set theory

Set theory

Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies sets, which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics...

, an extender is a set which represents an elementary embedding having large cardinal properties. A nonprincipal ultrafilter

Ultrafilter

In the mathematical field of set theory, an ultrafilter on a set X is a collection of subsets of X that is a filter, that cannot be enlarged . An ultrafilter may be considered as a finitely additive measure. Then every subset of X is either considered "almost everything" or "almost nothing"...

 is the most basic case of an extender.

A (κ, λ)-extender can be defined as an elementary embedding of some model M of ZFC- (ZFC minus the power set axiom) having critical point κ ε M, and which maps κ to an ordinal at least equal to λ. It can also be defined as a collection of ultrafilters, one for each n-tuple

Tuple

In mathematics and computer science, a tuple is an ordered list of elements. In set theory, an n-tuple is a sequence of n elements, where n is a positive integer. There is also one 0-tuple, an empty sequence. An n-tuple is defined inductively using the construction of an ordered pair...

drawn from λ.