We survey the use of extra-set-theoretic hypotheses, mainly the continuum hypothesis, in the C*-algebra literature. The Calkin algebra emerges as a basic object of interest.

Full proofs of the Gödel incompleteness theorems are highly intricate affairs. Much of the intricacy lies in the details of setting up and checking the properties of a coding system representing the syntax of an object language (typically, that of arithmetic) within that same language. These details are seldom illuminating and tend to obscure the core of the argument. For this reason a number of efforts have been made to present the essentials of the proofs of Gödel's theorems without getting mired in syntactic or computational details. One of the most important of these efforts was made by Löb [8] in connection with his analysis of sentences asserting their own provability. Löb formulated three conditions (now known as the Hilbert-Bernays-Löb derivability conditions), on the provability predicate in a formal system which are jointly sufficient to yield the Gödel's second incompleteness theorem for it. A key role in Löb's analysis is played by (a special case of) what later became known as the diagonalization or fixed point property of formal systems, a property which had already, in essence, been exploited by Gödel in his original proofs of the incompleteness theorems. The fixed point property plays a central role in Lawvere's [7] category-theoretic account of incompleteness phenomena (see also [10]).

We present a characterization of supercompactness measures for ω1 in L(ℝ), and of countable products of such measures, using inner models. We give two applications of this characterization, the first obtaining the consistency of with ZFC+ADL(ℝ), and the second proving the uniqueness of the supercompactness measure over in L(ℝ) for .

We introduce a nonstandard arithmetic NQA− based on the theory developed by R. Chuaqui and P. Suppes in [2] (we will denote it by NQA+), with a weakened external open minimization schema. A finitary consistency proof for NQA− formalizable in PRA is presented. We also show interesting facts about the strength of the theories NQA−and NQA+; NQA−is mutually interpretable with IΔ0 + EXP, and on the other hand, NQA+interprets the theories IΣ1 and WKL0.

§1. Introduction. A linear ordering (also known as total ordering) embeds into another linear ordering if it is isomorphic to a subset of it. Two linear orderings are said to be equimorphic if they can be embedded in each other. This is an equivalence relation, and we call the equivalence classes equimorphism types. We analyze the structure of equimorphism types of linear orderings, which is partially ordered by the embeddability relation. Our analysis is mainly fromthe viewpoints of Computability Theory and Reverse Mathematics. But we also obtain results, as the definition of equimorphism invariants for linear orderings, which provide a better understanding of the shape of this structure in general.

This study of linear orderings started by analyzing the proof-theoretic strength of a theorem due to Jullien [Jul69]. As is often the case in Reverse Mathematics, to solve this problem it was necessary to develop a deeper understanding of the objects involved. This led to a variety of results on the structure of linear orderings and the embeddability relation on them. These results can be divided into three groups.