The problem of the existence of a universal structure omitting a finite set of forbidden substructures is reducible to the corresponding problem in the category of graphs with a vertex coloring by two colors. It is not known whether this problem reduces further to the category of ordinary graphs. It is also not known whether these problems are decidable.

This paper is a contribution to the project of determining which set existence axioms are needed to prove various theorems of analysis. For more on this project and its history we refer the reader to [1] and [2].

We work in a weak subsystem of second order arithmetic. The language of second order arithmetic includes the symbols 0, 1, =, <, +, ·, and ∈, together with number variables x, y, z, … (which are intended to stand for natural numbers), set variables X, Y, Z, … (which are intended to stand for sets of natural numbers), and the usual quantifiers (which can be applied to both kinds of variables) and logical connectives. We write ∀x < t φ and ∃x < t φ as abbreviations for ∀x(x < t → φ) and ∃x{x < t ∧ φ) respectively; these are called bounded quantifiers. A formula is said to be if it has no quantifiers applied to set variables, and all quantifiers applied to number variables are bounded. It is if it has the form ∃xθ and it is if it has the form ∀xθ, where in both cases θ is .

The theory RCA0 has as axioms the usual Peano axioms, with the induction scheme restricted to formulas, and in addition the comprehension scheme, which consists of all formulas of the form

where φ is , ψ is , and X does not occur free in φ(n). (“RCA” stands for “Recursive Comprehension Axiom.” The reason for the name is that the comprehension scheme is only strong enough to prove the existence of recursive sets.) It is known that this theory is strong enough to allow the development of many of the basic properties of the real numbers, but that certain theorems of elementary analysis are not provable in this theory. Most relevant for our purposes is the fact that it is impossible to prove in RCA0 that every continuous function on the closed interval [0, 1] attains maximum and minimum values (see [1]).

Since the most common proof of the Mean Value Theorem makes use of this theorem, it might be thought that the Mean Value Theorem would also not be provable in RCA0. However, we show in this paper that the Mean Value Theorem can be proven in RCA0. All theorems stated in this paper are theorems of RCA0, and all of our reasoning will take place in RCA0.

A fairly quotable special, but still representative, case of our main result is that for 2 ≤ n < ω, there is a natural number m(n) such that, the following holds. Assume GCH: If λ < μ are regular, there is a cofinality preserving forcing extension in which 2λ = μ and, for all σ < λ ≤ κ < η such that η(+m(n)−+) ≤ μ,

This generalizes results of [3], Section 1. and the forcing is a “many cardinals” version of the forcing there.

We construct the set of the title, answering a question of Cholak, Jockusch. and Slaman [1], and discuss its connections with the study of the proof-theoretic strength and effective content of versions of Ramsey's Theorem. In particular, our result implies that every ω-model of must contain a nonlow set.

A subset A ⊆ M of a totally ordered structure M is said to be convex, if for any a, b ∈ A: [a < b → ∀t (a < tb → t ∈ A)]. A complete theory of first order is weakly o-minimal (M. Dickmann [D]) if any model M is totally ordered by some ∅-definable formula and any subset of M which is definable with parameters from M is a finite union of convex sets. We prove here that for any model M of a weakly o-minimal theory T. any expansion M+ of M by a family of unary predicates has a weakly o-minimal theory iff the set of all realizations of each predicate is a union of a finite number of convex sets (Theorem 63). that solves the Problem of Cherlin-Macpherson-Marker-Steinhorn [MMS] for the class of weakly o-minimal theories.

The paper considers the set of first-order polymodal formulas the modal operators in which can be applied to subformulas of at most one free variable. Using a mosaic technique, we prove a general satisfiability criterion for formulas in , which reduces the modal satisfiability to the classical one. The criterion is then used to single out a number of new, in a sense optimal, decidable fragments of various modal predicate logics.

We show that under Martin's Axiom, the cofinality cf(Aut(Γ)) of the automorphism group of the random graph Γ is 2ω.

The results in this paper say that natural upper bounds for sets of degrees associated with theories and models of arithmetic cannot be minimal. The basic new result says that for any completion T of PA, there is another completion S such that S<TT and Rep(S) = Rep(T). This immediately implies that deg(T) is not minimal over {deg(X): X ∈ Rep(T)}. As an application of the basic result, we obtain the fact that if is a non-standard model of TA (true arithmetic), then deg () cannot be minimal over {deg(X): X is arithmetical}. More generally, if is a non-standard model of an arbitrary completion T of PA, then deg() cannot be minimal over {deg(): X ∈ Rep(T)}. We vary the basic result, making S′ ≡TT′. As an application of the variant, we obtain the fact that if is a non-standard model of PA, then {deg(): ≅ } has no minimal element.

The remainder of the present section gives a brief account of the background needed for the basic new result and the variant. These two results are proved in Section 2. The applications are given in Section 3, along with further background needed for the applications. One important source of ideas used in the present paper is a paper of Scott [9]. In addition, there are ideas taken from Tennenbaum [12], Feferman [3], Marker [6], [7], and Solovay. Chapter 19 of [1] gathers together most of this material. In fact, it contains all that is really essential. In one application, we appeal to Solovay's result on degrees of models of an arbitrary completion of PA, a result which is not completely proved in [1]. However, for the best application, which implies all the others, we use only some ideas from the proof of Solovay's theorem. These are given in lemmas that are proved in Section 3, where they are needed, or taken from [1], While the proof of Solovay's result requires an infinitely nested priority construction, our best application rests on nothing more than finite-injury constructions.

The relationship between ideals I of Turing degrees and groups of I-recursive automorphisms of the ordering on rationals is studied. We discuss the differences between such groups and the group of all automorphisms, prove that the isomorphism type of such a group completely defines the ideal I, and outline a general correspondence between principal ideals of Turing degrees and the first-order properties of such groups.

We show that two abelian-by-finite groups are elementarily equivalent if and only if they satisfy the same sentences with two alternations of quantifiers. We also prove that abelian-by-finite groups satisfy a quantifier elimination property. On the other hand, for each integer n, we give some examples of nilpotent groups which satisfy the same sentences with n alternations of quantifiers and do not satisfy the same sentences with n + 1 alternations of quantifiers.

The current paper proves the results announced in [5].

We isolate a new large cardinal concept, “remarkability.” Consistencywise, remarkable cardinals are between ineffable and ω-Erdös cardinals. They are characterized by the existence of “0#-like” embeddings; however, they relativize down to L. It turns out that the existence of a remarkable cardinal is equiconsistent with L(ℝ) absoluteness for proper forcings. In particular, said absoluteness does not imply determinacy.

We give an answer to the question as to whether quantifier elimination is possible in some infinite algebraic extensions of ℚp (‘infinite p-adic fields’) using a natural language extension. The present paper deals with those infinite p-adic fields which admit only tamely ramified algebraic extensions (so-called tame fields). In the case of tame fields whose residue fields satisfy Kaplansky's condition of having no extension of p-divisible degree quantifier elimination is possible when the language of valued fields is extended by the power predicates Pn introduced by Macintyre and, for the residue field, further predicates and constants. For tame infinite p-adic fields with algebraically closed residue fields an extension by Pn predicates is sufficient.