Abstract

The Artin‐Schreier theorem says that every formally real field has orders. Friedman, Simpson and Smith showed in [6] that the Artin‐Schreier theorem is equivalent to over. We first prove that the generalization of the Artin‐Schreier theorem to noncommutative rings is equivalent to over. In the theory of orderings on rings, following an idea of Serre, we often show the existence of orders on formally real rings by extending pre‐orders to orders, where Zorn's lemma is used. We then prove that “pre‐orders on rings not necessarily commutative extend to orders” is equivalent to.