In [5, Corollary 3.1] D. A. Martin characterized the degrees of the hyperhypersimple sets as those r.e. degrees a satisfying a′ = 0″. In the present paper we investigate the degrees of the hyperhyperimmune (h.h.i.) sets. We do not achieve a characterization of these degrees, but we do show that the condition a′ ≥ 0″ is sufficient, and the condition a′ ≥ 0′ is necessary, for a degree a to contain an h.h.i. set.

This paper addresses some questions about dimension theory for P-minimal structures. We show that, for any definable set A, the dimension of $\bar A\backslash A$ is strictly smaller than the dimension of A itself, and that A has a decomposition into definable, pure-dimensional components. This is then used to show that the intersection of finitely many definable dense subsets of A is still dense in A. As an application, we obtain that any definable function $f:D \subseteq {K^m} \to {K^n}$ is continuous on a dense, relatively open subset of its domain D, thereby answering a question that was originally posed by Haskell and Macpherson.

In order to obtain these results, we show that P-minimal structures admit a type of cell decomposition, using a topological notion of cells inspired by real algebraic geometry.

The forcing theorem is the most fundamental result about set forcing, stating that the forcing relation for any set forcing is definable and that the truth lemma holds, that is everything that holds in a generic extension is forced by a condition in the relevant generic filter. We show that both the definability (and, in fact, even the amenability) of the forcing relation and the truth lemma can fail for class forcing.

In addition to these negative results, we show that the forcing theorem is equivalent to the existence of a (certain kind of) Boolean completion, and we introduce a weak combinatorial property (approachability by projections) that implies the forcing theorem to hold. Finally, we show that unlike for set forcing, Boolean completions need not be unique for class forcing.

The primary relation studied in recursion theory is that of relative complexity: A set or function A (of natural numbers) is reducible to one B if, given access to information about B, we can compute A. The primary reducibility is that of Turing, A ≤TB, where arbitrary (Turing) machines, φe, can be used; access to information about (the oracle) B is unlimited and the lengths of computations are potentially unbounded. Many other interesting reducibilities result from restricitng one or more of these facets of the procedure. Thus, for example, the strongest notion considered is one-one reducibility on sets: A ≤1B iff there is a one-one recursive (= effective) function f such that x Є A ⇔ f(x) Є B. Many-one (≤m) reducibility simply allows f to be many-one. Other intermediate reducibilities include truth-table (≤tt) and weak truth-table (≤wtt). The latter imposes a recursive bound f(x) on the information about B that can be used to compute A(x). The former also bounds the length of computations by requiring that the computation of A(x) from B halt in at most f(x) many steps.

Each such reducibility r defines a notion of degree, degr(A) = {B : A ≤rB ∧ B ≤rA}, and a corresponding structure of the r-degrees ordered by r-reducibility. (We typically denote the degree of A by a.) A major theme in recursion theory has been the investigation of the relation between a set's place in these orderings (the algebraic properties of its degree) and other algorithmic, set-theoretic or definability type notions of complexity. Important examples of such other notions include rates of growth of functions, the types of approximation procedures which converge to the given function or set and the (syntactic) complexity of defining the set (or function) in arithmetic or analysis.

Let KP− be the theory resulting from Kripke-Platek set theory by restricting Foundation to Set Foundation. Let G: V → V (V ≔ universe of sets) be a Δ0-definable set function, i.e. there is a Δ0-formula φ(x, y) such that φ(x, G(x)) is true for all sets x, and V ⊨ ∀x∃!yφ(x, y). In this paper we shall verify (by elementary proof-theoretic methods) that the collection of set functions primitive recursive in G coincides with the collection of those functions which are Σ1-definable in KP− + Σ1-Foundation + ∀x∃!yφ(x, y). Moreover, we show that this is still true if one adds Π1-Foundation or a weak version of Δ0-Dependent Choices to the latter theory.

In lectures at Notre Dame University in 1948 I presented what was essentially a semantical analysis of the propositions formed from the elementary propositions of a formal system by compounding with propositional connectives and quantifiers. The system LD is one of the systems treated there in the chapter on negation. It is substantially the minimal calculus with excluded middle, and was first considered by Johansson. It corresponds semantically to the situation where we have refutability with completeness, and so it may be regarded as the natural system of strict implication. This paper gives the details of certain results concerning this system which have been reported elsewhere. Some related remarks concerning other systems will also be included. Acquaintance with the lectures cited is presupposed; they are referred to as TFD.

Let CKDT be the assertion that for every countably infinite bipartite graph G, there exist a vertex covering C of G and a matching M in G such that C consists of exactly one vertex from each edge in M. (This is a theorem of Podewski and Stefifens [12].) Let ATR0 be the subsystem of second-order arithmetic with arithmetical transfinite recursion and restricted induction. Let RCA0 be the subsystem of second-order arithmetic with recursive comprehension and restricted induction. We show that CKDT is provable in ATR0. Combining this with a result of Aharoni, Magidor, and Shore [2], we see that CKDT is logically equivalent to the axioms of ATR0, the equivalence being provable in RCA0.

We describe a general method how to construct from a prepositional proof system P a possibly much stronger proof system iP. The system iP operates with exponentially long P-proofs described “implicitly” by polynomial size circuits.

As an example we prove that proof system iEF, implicit EF, corresponds to bounded arithmetic theory and hence, in particular, polynomially simulates the quantified prepositional calculus G and the -consequences of proved with one use of exponentiation. Furthermore, the soundness of iEF is not provable in . An iteration of the construction yields a proof system corresponding to T2 + Exp and, in principle, to much stronger theories.

The purpose of these notes is to describe an absoluteness principle due to Jacques Stern and discuss some applications to the general study of Borel sets. This paper will not be engaged in independence results, but in proving outright theorems about the Borel hierarchy.

Roughly speaking, Stern's absoluteness principle states that if a certain set can be introduced into the universe by forcing, then it can be introduced by some small forcing notion.

The notation , and so on, will be defined in Section 1; this gives a notational system for describing the complexity of Borel sets beyond Fσ or Gδ. The “universe” refers to the totality of all sets. “Forcing” refers to Paul Cohen's technique for, in some sense, changing this totality by the introduction of new sets. Here “small” means relatively small cardinality.

The size of this small forcing notion is roughly the ath iteration of the power set operation. Just to get an idea of what this theorem might be saying, we can argue that under certain conditions, if a closed set can be introduced by forcing, then it exists already. There are a number of other qualifications that need to be made to this rough description, and we will come to them later.

Unlike, say, Shoenfield absoluteness, Stern's absoluteness can only be made understood in the terminology of forcing. Since forcing is typically associated with the pursuit of independence results, we could easily assume that Stern's work has little relevance in proving positive theorems about the Borel hierarchy.

However, this would be untrue. Using abstract and indirect metamathematical arguments, and availing ourselves of Stern's absoluteness principle, we will prove a string of ZFC theorems for which no direct proof is known.

If ZFC is consistent, then each of the following is consistent with :

(1) X ⊆ ℝ is of strong measure zero iff ∣X∣ ≤ ℵ1 + there is a generalized Sierpinski set.

(2) The union of ℵ many strong measure zero sets is a strong measure zero set + there is a strong measure zero set of size ℵ2 + there is no Cohen real over L.

The first section of this paper is concerned with the intrinsic properties of elementary monadic logic (EM), and characterizations in the spirit of Lindström [2] are given. His proofs do not apply to monadic logic since relations are used, and intrinsic properties of EM turn out to differ in certain ways from those of the elementary logic of relations (i.e., the predicate calculus), which we shall call EL. In the second section we investigate connections between higher-order monadic and polyadic logics.

EM is the subsystem of EL which results by the restriction to one-place predicate letters. We omit constants (for simplicity) but take EM to contain identity. Let a type be any finite sequence (possibly empty) of one-place predicate letters. A model M of type has a nonempty universe ∣M∣ and assigns to each predicate letter P of a subset PM of ∣M∣.

Let us take a monadic logic L to be any collection of classes of models, called L-classes, satisfying the following:

1. All models in a given L-class are of the same type (called the type of the class).

2. Isomorphic models lie in the same L-classes.

3. If and are L-classes of the same type, then and are L-classes.

For general information on bar recursion the reader should consult the papers of Spector [8], where it was introduced, Howard [2] and Tait [11]. In this note we shall prove that the terms of Gödel's theory T(in its extensional version of Spector [8]) are closed under the rule BR0,1 of bar recursion of types 0 and 1. Our method of proof is based on the notion of an infinite term introduced by Tait [9]. The main tools of the proof are (i) the normalization theorem for (notations for) infinite terms and (ii) valuation functionals. Both are elaborated in [6]; for brevity some familiarity with this paper is assumed here. Using (i) and (ii) we reduce BR0,1 to ξ-recursion with ξ < ε0. From this the result follows by work of Tait [10], who gave a reduction of 2ξ-recursion to ξ-recursion at a higher type. At the end of the paper we discuss a perhaps more natural variant of bar recursion introduced by Kreisel in [4].

Related results are due to Kreisel (in his appendix to [8]), who obtains results which imply, using the reduction given by Howard [2] of the constant of bar recursion of type τ to the rule of bar recursion of type (0 → τ) → τ, that T is not closed under the rule of bar recursion of a type of level ≥ 2, to Diller [1], who gave a reduction of BR0,1 to ξ-recursion with ξ bounded by the least ω-critical number, and to Howard [3], who gave an ordinal analysis of the constant of bar recursion of type 0. I am grateful to H. Barendregt, W. Howard and G. Kreisel for many useful comments and discussions.

The recursion-theoretic study of mathematical structures other than ω is now a field of much activity. Analysis and algebra are two such structures which have been studied for their effective contents. Studies in analysis began with the work of Specker on nonconstructive proofs in analysis [16] and in Lacombe's inspiring notes on relevant notions of recursive analysis [8]. Studies in algebra originated in the work of Frolich and Shepherdson on effective extensions of explicit fields [1] and in Rabin's study of computable fields [15]. Equipped with the richness of modern techniques in recursion theory, Metakides and Nerode [11]–[13] began investigating the effective content of vector spaces and fields; these studies have been extended by Kalantari, Remmel, Retzlaff, Shore and others.

Kalantari and Retzlaff [5] began a foundational inquiry into effectiveness in topological spaces. They consider a topological space X with a countable basis ⊿ for the topology. The space is fully effective, that is, the basis elements are coded into ω and the operation of intersection of basis elements and the relation of inclusion among them are both computable. Similar to , the lattice of recursively enumerable (r.e.) subsets of ω, the collection of r.e. open subsets of X forms a lattice ℒ(X) under the usual operations of union and intersection.

In the context of abstract elementary classes (AECs) with a monster model, several possible definitions of superstability have appeared in the literature. Among them are no long splitting chains, uniqueness of limit models, and solvability. Under the assumption that the class is tame and stable, we show that (asymptotically) no long splitting chains implies solvability and uniqueness of limit models implies no long splitting chains. Using known implications, we can then conclude that all the previously-mentioned definitions (and more) are equivalent:

• Corollary.LetKbe a tame AEC with a monster model. Assume thatKis stable in a proper class of cardinals. The following are equivalent:

  1. (1) For all high-enough λ,Khas no long splitting chains.

  2. (2) For all high-enough λ, there exists a good λ-frame on a skeleton ofKλ.

  3. (3) For all high-enough λ,Khas a unique limit model of cardinality λ.

  4. (4) For all high-enough λ,Khas a superlimit model of cardinality λ.

  5. (5) For all high-enough λ, the union of any increasing chain of λ-saturated models is λ-saturated.

  6. (6) There exists μ such that for all high-enough λ,Kis (λ,μ) -solvable.

This gives evidence that there is a clear notion of superstability in the framework of tame AECs with a monster model.

Quantification theory, or first-order predicate logic, can be formulated in terms purely of predicate letters and a few predicate functors which attach to predicates to form further predicates. Apart from the predicate letters, which are schematic, there are no variables. On this score the plan is reminiscent of the combinatory logic of Schönfinkel and Curry. Theirs, however, had the whole of higher set theory as its domain; the present scheme stays within the bounds of predicate logic.

In 1960 I published an apparatus to this effect, and an improved version in 1971. In both versions I assumed two inversion functors, major and minor; also a cropping functor and the obvious complement functor. The effects of these functors, when applied to an n-place predicate, are as follows:

The variables here are explanatory only and no part of the final notation. Ultimately the predicate letters need exponents showing the number of places, but I omit them in these pages.

A further functor-to continue now with the 1971 version-was padding:

Finally there was a zero-place predicate functor, which is to say simply a constant predicate, namely the predicate ‘I’ of identity, and there was a two-place predicate functor ‘∩’ of intersection. The intersection ‘F ∩ G’ received a generalized interpretation, allowing ‘F’ and ‘G’ to be predicates with unlike numbers of places. However, Steven T. Kuhn has lately shown me that the generalization is unnecessary and reducible to the homogeneous case.

In the presence of large cardinals, or sufficient determinacy, every equivalence relation in either admits a wellordered separating family or continuously reduces E0.

In the first part of this paper we discuss some aspects of Detlefsen's attempt to save Hilbert's Program from the consequences of Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem. His arguments are based on his interpretation of the long standing and well-known controversy on what, exactly, finitistic means are. In his paper [1] Detlefsen takes the position that there is a form of the ω-rule which is a finitistically valid means of proof, sufficient to prove the consistency of elementary number theory Z. On the other hand, he claims that Z with its first-order logic is not strong enough to allow a formalization of such an ω-rule. This would explain why the unprovability of Con(Z) in Z does not imply that the consistency of Z cannot be proved by finitistic means. We show that Detlefsen's proposal is unacceptable as originally formulated in [1], but that a reasonable modification of the rule he suggest leads to a partial program already studied for many years. We investigate the scope of such a program in terms of proof-theoretic reducibilities. We also show that this partial program encompasses mathematically important theories studied in the “Reverse Mathematics” program. In order to investigate the provability with such a modified rule, we define new consistency and provability predicates which are weaker than the usual ones. We then investigate their properties, including a few that have no apparent philosophical significance but compare interestingly with the properties of the program based on the iteration of our ω-rule. We determine some of the limitations of such programs, pointing out that these limitations partly explain why partial programs that have been successfully carried out use quite different and substantially more radical extensions of finitistic methods with more general forms of restricted reasoning.

This paper discusses a sequence of extensions of NFU, Jensen's improvement of Quine's set theory “New Foundations” (NF) of [16].

The original theory NF of Quine continues to present difficulties. After 60 years of intermittent investigation, it is still not known to be consistent relative to any set theory in which we have confidence. Specker showed in [20] that NF disproves Choice (and so proves Infinity). Even if one assumes the consistency of NF, one is hampered by the lack of powerful methods for proofs of consistency and independence such as are available for use with ZFC; very clever work has been done with permutation methods, starting with [18] and [5], and exemplified more recently by [14], but permutation methods can only be applied to show the consistency or independence of unstratified sentences (see the definition of NFU below for a definition of stratification). For example, there is no method available to determine whether the assertion “the continuum can be well-ordered” is consistent with or independent of NF. There is one substantial independence result for an assertion with nontrivial stratified consequences, using metamathematical methods: this is Orey's proof of the independence of the Axiom of Counting from NF (see below for a statement of this axiom).

We mention these difficulties only to reassure the reader of their irrelevance to the present work. Jensen's modification of “New Foundations” (in [13]), which was to restrict extensionality to sets, allowing many non-sets (urelements) with no elements, has almost magical effects.

The study of continuous group actions is ubiquitous in mathematics, and perhaps the most general kinds of actions for which we can hope to prove theorems in just ZFC are those where a Polish group acts on a Polish space.

For this general class we can find works such as [29] that build on ideas from ergodic theory and examine actions of locally compact groups in both the measure theoretic and topological contexts. On the other hand a text in model theory, such as [12], will typically consider issues bearing on the actions by the symmetric group of all permutations of the integers. More generally [1] shows that the orbit equivalence relations induced by closed subgroups of the infinite symmetric group can be reduced to the isomorphism relation on corresponding classes of countable models.

This paper considers a third category formed by the continuous actions of separable Banach spaces on Polish spaces. These examples cannot be subsumed under the two earlier headings, and it is known from [10] that the Borel cardinalities of the quotient spaces that arise from such actions are incomparable with the equivalence relations induced by the symmetric group or any locally compact Polish group action.

One of the first things to be addressed concerns the complexity of these equivalence relations. This question for appears in [1].