We show the consistency, relative to the appropriate supercompactness or strong compactness assumptions, of the existence of a non-supercompact strongly compact cardinal $\kappa _0$ (the least measurable cardinal) exhibiting properties which are impossible when $\kappa _0$ is supercompact. In particular, we construct models in which $\square _{\kappa ^+}$ holds for every inaccessible cardinal $\kappa $ except $\kappa _0$, GCH fails at every inaccessible cardinal except $\kappa _0$, and $\kappa _0$ is less than the least Woodin cardinal.

We improve the upper bound for the consistency strength of stationary reflection at successors of singular cardinals.

We derive a forcing axiom from the conjunction of square and diamond, and present a few applications, primary among them being the existence of super-Souslin trees. It follows that for every uncountable cardinal $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}$, if $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}^{++}$ is not a Mahlo cardinal in Gödel’s constructible universe, then $2^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}=\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}^{+}$ entails the existence of a $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}^{+}$-complete $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}^{++}$-Souslin tree.

Three central combinatorial properties in set theory are the tree property, the approachability property and stationary reflection. We prove the mutual independence of these properties by showing that any of their eight Boolean combinations can be forced to hold at ${\kappa ^{ + + }}$, assuming that $\kappa = {\kappa ^{ < \kappa }}$ and there is a weakly compact cardinal above κ.

If in addition κ is supercompact then we can force κ to be ${\aleph _\omega }$ in the extension. The proofs combine the techniques of adding and then destroying a nonreflecting stationary set or a ${\kappa ^{ + + }}$-Souslin tree, variants of Mitchell’s forcing to obtain the tree property, together with the Prikry-collapse poset for turning a large cardinal into ${\aleph _\omega }$.

We present a forcing to obtain a localized version of Local Club Condensation, a generalized Condensation principle introduced by Sy Friedman and the first author in [3] and [5]. This forcing will have properties nicer than the forcings to obtain this localized version that could be derived from the forcings presented in either [3] or [5]. We also strongly simplify the related proofs provided in [3] and [5]. Moreover our forcing will be capable of introducing this localized principle at κ while simultaneously performing collapses to make κ become the successor of any given smaller regular cardinal. This will be particularly useful when κ has large cardinal properties in the ground model. We will apply this to measure how much L-likeness is implied by Local Club Condensation and related principles. We show that Local Club Condensation at κ+ is consistent with ¬☐κ whenever κ is regular and uncountable, generalizing and improving a result of the third author in [14], and that if κ ≥ ω2 is regular, CC(κ+) - Chang’s Conjecture at κ+ - is consistent with Local Club Condensation at κ+, both under suitable large cardinal consistency assumptions.

The history of productivity of the κ-chain condition in partial orders, topological spaces, or Boolean algebras is surveyed, and its connection to the set-theoretic notion of a weakly compact cardinal is highlighted. Then, it is proved that for every regular cardinal $\kappa > \aleph _1 {\rm{,}}$ the principle □(k) is equivalent to the existence of a certain strong coloring $c\,:\,[k]^2 \, \to $k for which the family of fibers ${\cal T}\left( c \right)$ is a nonspecial κ-Aronszajn tree.

The theorem follows from an analysis of a new characteristic function for walks on ordinals, and implies in particular that if the κ-chain condition is productive for a given regular cardinal $\kappa > \aleph _1 {\rm{,}}$ then κ is weakly compact in some inner model of ZFC. This provides a partial converse to the fact that if κ is a weakly compact cardinal, then the κ-chain condition is productive.

Using square sequences, a stationary subset ST of אω1+1 is constructed from a tree T of height ω1, uniformly in T. Under suitable hypotheses, adding a closed unbounded subset to ST requires adding a cofinal branch to T or collapsing at least one of ω1, אω1, and אω1+1. An application is that in ZFC there is no parameter free definition of the family of subsets of אω1+1 that have a closed unbounded subset in some ω1, אω1, and אω1+1 preserving outer model.

The theorem of Fraenkel and Simpson states that the maximum number of distinct squares that a word w of length n can contain is less than 2n. This is based on the fact that no more than two squares can have their last occurrences starting at the same position. In this paper we show that the maximum number of the last occurrences of squares per position in a partial word containing one hole is 2k, where k is the size of the alphabet. Moreover, we prove that the number of distinct squares in a partial word with one hole and of length n is less than 4n, regardless of the size of the alphabet. For binary partial words, this upper bound can be reduced to 3n.

A problem posed in the early eighteenth century asks for right-angled triangles, each of whose sides exceeds double the area by a perfect square. We summarize known results and find such triangles with the smallest possible standard generators.

If X is a topological space then exp X denotes the space of non-empty closed subsets of X with the Vietoris topology and λX denotes the superextension of X Using Martin's axiom together with the negation of the continuum hypothesis the following is proved: If every discrete subset of exp X is countable the X is compact and metrizable. As a corollary, if λX contains no uncountable discrete subsets then X is compact and metrizable. A similar argument establishes the metrizability of any compact space X whose square X × X contains no uncountable discrete subsets.