Cyclic order
In mathematics, a cyclic order is a way to arrange a set of objects in a circle. Unlike most structures in order theory, a cyclic order is not modeled as a binary relation, such as "a < b". One does not say that east is "more clockwise" than west. Instead, a cyclic order is defined as a ternary relation [a, b, c], meaning "after a, one reaches b before c". For example, [June, October, February]. A ternary relation is called a cyclic order if it is cyclic, asymmetric, transitive, and total. Dropping the "total" requirement results in a partial cyclic order.
A set with a cyclic order is called a cyclically ordered set or simply a cycle. Some familiar cycles are discrete, having only a finite number of elements: there are seven days of the week, four cardinal directions, twelve notes in the chromatic scale, and three plays in rock-paper-scissors. In a finite cycle, each element has a "next element" and a "previous element". There are also continuously variable cycles with infinitely many elements, such as the oriented unit circle in the plane.
