Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 March 2014
A λ-theory T is a consistent set of equations between λ-terms closed under derivability. The degree of T is the degree of the set of Gödel numbers of its elements. is the λ-theory axiomatized by the set {M = N∣ M, N unsolvable}. A λ-theory is sensible iff T ⊃ ; for a motivation see [6] and [4].
In §1 it is proved that the theory is Σ20-complete. We present Wadsworth's proof that its unique maximal consistent extension * (= Th(D∞)) is Π20-complete. In §2 it is proved that η (= λη-calculus + ) is not closed under the ω-rule (see [1]). In §3 arguments are given to conjecture that is Π11-complete. This is done by representing recursive sets of sequence numbers as λ-terms and by connecting wellfoundedness of trees with provability in ω. In §4 an infinite set of equations independent over η will be constructed. From this it follows that there are 2ℵ0 sensible theories T such that and 2ℵ0 sensible hard models of arbitrarily high degrees. In §5 some nonprovability results needed in §§1 and 2 are established. For this purpose one uses the theory η extended with a reduction relation for which the Church–Rosser theorem holds. The concept of Gross reduction is used in order to show that certain terms have no common reduct.