A **measurable cardinal** $\kappa$ is an <a href="Uncountable" class="mw-redirect" title="Uncountable">uncountable</a> [cardinal](Cardinal.md "Cardinal") such that it is possible to "measure" the subsets of $\kappa$ using a 2-valued <a href="Measure" class="mw-redirect" title="Measure">measure</a> on the powerset of $\kappa$, $\mathcal{P}(\kappa)$.
There exists several other equivalent definitions: For example, $\kappa$ can also be the critical point of a nontrivial [](Elementary%20embedding.md) $j:V\to M$.
Measurable cardinals were introduced by Stanislaw Ulam in 1930.
## Definitions
There are essentially two ways to "measure" a cardinal $\kappa$, that's
to say we can require the measure to be $\sigma$-additive (a
"classical" measure) or to be $\kappa$-additive (for every cardinal
$\lambda$ such that $\lambda < \kappa$, the union of $\lambda$
null sets still has measure zero).
Let $\kappa$ be an uncountable cardinal.
Theorem 1 : The following are equivalent :
1. There exists a 2-valued ($\sigma$-additive) measure on $\kappa$.
2. There exists a $\sigma$-complete nonprincipal ultrafilter on
$\kappa$.
The equivalence is due to the fact that if $\mu$ is a 2-valued measure
on $\kappa$, then $U=\{X\subset\kappa\|\mu(X)=1\}$ is a
nonprincipal ultrafilter (since $\mu$ is 2-valued) and is also
$\sigma$-complete because of $\mu