Assuming 0# does not exist, we present a combinatorial approach to Jensen's method of coding by a real. The forcing uses combinatorial consequences of fine structure (including the Covering Lemma, in various guises), but makes no direct appeal to fine structure itself.

We lay the combinatorial foundations for [5] by setting up and proving the essential properties of the coding apparatus for singular cardinals. We also prove another result concerning the coding apparatus for inaccessible cardinals.

The bounded proper forcing axiom BPFA is the statement that for any family of ℵ1 many maximal antichains of a proper forcing notion, each of size ℵ1, there is a directed set meeting all these antichains.

A regular cardinal κ is called ∑1-reflecting, if for any regular cardinal χ, for all formulas φ, “H(χ) ⊨ ‘φ’” implies “∃δ < κ, H(δ) ⊨ ‘φ’”.

We investigate several algebraic consequences of BPFA, and we show that the consistency strength of the bounded proper forcing axiom is exactly the existence of a ∑1-reflecting cardinal (which is less than the existence of a Mahlo cardinal).

We also show that the question of the existence of isomorphisms between two structures can be reduced to the question of rigidity of a structure.

Let T be a complete o-minimal extension of the theory of real closed fields. We characterize the convex hulls of elementary substructures of models of T and show that the residue field of such a convex hull has a natural expansion to a model of T. We give a quantifier elimination relative to T for the theory of pairs (ℛ, V) where ℛ ⊨ T and V ≠ ℛ is the convex hull of an elementary substructure of ℛ. We deduce that the theory of such pairs is complete and weakly o-minimal. We also give a quantifier elimination relative to T for the theory of pairs with ℛ a model of T and a proper elementary substructure that is Dedekind complete in ℛ. We deduce that the theory of such “tame” pairs is complete.

In this paper we characterize the well-known computational complexity classes of the polynomial time hierarchy as classes of provably recursive functions (with graphs of suitable bounded complexity) of some second order theories with weak comprehension axiom schemas but without any induction schemas (Theorem 6). We also find a natural relationship between our theories and the theories of bounded arithmetic (Lemmas 4 and 5). Our proofs use a technique which enables us to “speed up” induction without increasing the bounded complexity of the induction formulas. This technique is also used to obtain an interpretability result for the theories of bounded arithmetic (Theorem 4).

In treatises or advanced textbooks on theoretical physics, it is apparent that the way mathematics is used is very different from what is to be found in books of mathematics. There is, for example, no close connection between books on analysis, on the one hand, and any classical textbook in quantum mechanics, for example, Schiff, [11], or quite recent books, for example Ryder, [10], on quantum field theory. The differences run a good deal deeper than the fact that the books on theoretical physics are not written in the definition-theorem-proof style characteristic of pure mathematics. Although a good many propositions are proved in the books on physics, there are almost with exception no existential proofs, and consequently there is no really serious systematic use of quantifiers. Another important characteristic is the free use of infinitesimals. In fact, most results would not lose anything, from a physicist's point of view, by leaving them in approximate form, i.e., instead of strict equalities or inequalities, using equalities or inequalities only up to an infinitesimal.

The discrepancy between the way mathematics is ordinarily done in theoretical physics and the way it is built up from a foundational standpoint in any of the standard modern views raises the question of whether it might be possible to construct quite directly a rigorous foundation that reflects a significant part of this standard practice in theoretical physics. Other parts of standard practice in physics, for example, the use of physically intuitive but nonrigorous arguments, are not present in our system.

An ordered field is said to be Scott complete iff it is complete with respect to its uniform structure. Zakon has asked whether nonstandard real lines are Scott complete. We prove in ZFC that for any complete Boolean algebra B which is not (ω, 2)-distributive there is an ultrafilter of B such that the Boolean ultrapower of the real line modulo is not Scott complete. We also show how forcing in set theory gives rise to examples of Boolean ultrapowers of the real line which are not Scott complete.

The paper “Partitions of Products” [DiPH] investigated the polarized partition relation

The relation is consistent relative to an inaccessible cardinal if every αi is finite, but inconsistent if two are infinite. We show here that it consistent (relative to an inaccessible) for one to be infinite.

Along the way, we prove an interesting proposition from ZFC concerning partitions of the finite subsets of ω.

An ω-model (a model in which all natural numbers are standard) of the predicative fragment of Quine's set theory “New Foundations” (NF) is constructed. Marcel Crabbé has shown that a theory NFI extending predicative NF is consistent, and the model constructed is actually a model of NFI as well. The construction follows the construction of ω-models of NFU (NF with urelements) by R. B. Jensen, and, like the construction of Jensen for NFU, it can be used to construct α-models for any ordinal α. The construction proceeds via a model of a type theory of a peculiar kind; we first discuss such “tangled type theories” in general, exhibiting a “tangled type theory” (and also an extension of Zermelo set theory with Δ0 comprehension) which is equiconsistent with NF (for which the consistency problem seems no easier than the corresponding problem for NF (still open)), and pointing out that “tangled type theory with urelements” has a quite natural interpretation, which seems to provide an explanation for the more natural behaviour of NFU relative to the other set theories of this kind, and can be seen anachronistically as underlying Jensen's consistency proof for NFU.

I will formulate in this paper three set-theoretic axioms, (A1), (A2), and (A3), which appear natural and settle some well-known questions, and I will give some metamathematical evidence supporting these axioms. I build upon a distinction between pure mathematics and applied metamathematics which views the first as an art dealing with imaginary objects, where following Poincaré we can say to exist is to be free of contradiction, and the second as a science describing the phenomenon of mathematics, where science means a description of some physical reality (in this case the reality of thoughts in our brains which underlie spoken or written mathematics). Of course this distinction is not new, but it has been disregarded by many mathematicians and philosophers who wrote about the nature of mathematics, e.g. by the Platonists, and even by some empiricists who thought that mathematics is a science. Since applied metamathematics is a science, unlike pure mathematics it has to be lean, i.e., to obey Ockham's principle of economy of concepts (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem).

In this lean metamathematics we describe pure mathematics as a finite structure of thoughts in our brains, and we think that written or spoken mathematics is an abstract description of this structure. (I think that this is the view which Poincaré expressed informally in his discussions with the logicians and set theorists of his times, although his idea has to be modified to some extent; see Remark 4 at the end of this paper.) We claim that all mathematical objects which are imagined when we develop a (first-order) theory T can be represented by means of terms of the language of a Skolemization of the set of sentences consisting of the axioms of T and of all theorems of logic.

It is shown that for any computable field K and any r.e. degree a there is an r.e. set A of degree a and a field F ≃ K with underlying set A such that the field operations of F (including subtraction and division) are extendible to (total) recursive functions. Further, it is shown that if a and b are r.e. degrees with b ≤ a, there is a 1-1 recursive function f: ℚ → ω such that f(ℚ) ∈ a, f(ℤ) ∈ b, and the images of the field operations of ℚ under f can be extended to recursive functions.

A key idea in both Frege's development of arithmetic in the Grundlagen [7] and Zermelo's 1904 proof [10] of the well-ordering theorem is that of a “type reducing” correspondence between second-level and first-level entities. In Frege's construction, the correspondence obtains between concept and number, in Zermelo's (through the axiom of choice), between set and member. In this paper, a formulation is given and a detailed investigation undertaken of a system ℱ of many-sorted first-order logic (first outlined in the Appendix to [6]) in which this notion of type reducing correspondence is accorded a central role and which enables Frege's and Zermelo's constructions to be presented in such a way as to reveal their essential similarity. By adapting Bourbaki's version of Zermelo's proof of the well-ordering theorem, we show that, within ℱ, any correspondence c between second-level entities (here called concepts) and first-level ones (here called objects) induces a well-ordering relation W (c) in a canonical manner. We shall see that, when c is the “Fregean” correspondence between concepts and cardinal numbers, W (c) is (the well-ordering of) the ordinal ω + 1, and when c is a “Zermelian” choice function on concepts, W (c) is a well-ordering of the universal concept embracing all objects.

In ℱ an important role is played by the notion of extension of a concept. To each concept X we assume there is assigned an object e(X) in such a way that, for any concepts X, Y satisfying a certain predicate E, we have e (X) = e (Y) iff the same objects fall under X and Y.

Methods for carrying out transfinitely nested priority constructions have been developed by Harrington [7] and by Ash [2, 1, 3, 4]. Ash's method has different versions, with later ones becoming simpler. Lemmp and Lerman [11] have also developed a method, for finitely nested constructions. Ash formulated abstractly the object of a nested priority construction, and he proved a metatheorem for what he called “α-systems”, listing conditions which guarantee the success of the construction. Harrington's method of “workers”, at least in its original, informal state, seems more flexible than Ash's α-systems.

In [10, 9], there are finite and transfinite versions of a metatheorem for workers. The statements are complicated, and these metatheorems have not proved to be very useful. The present paper gives a new transfinite metatheorem. The statement is considerably simpler than the one in [9], although not so simple as that in [3]. The new metatheorem grew, in part, out of an effort to find a new proof of Ash's metatheorem. The new metatheorem yields the one in [3], and it seems more flexible. A different generalization of Ash's metatheorem will be given in [5].

Ash's metatheorem is easier to use than the one in the present paper, and the result in [3] is certainly the one to use wherever it applies. Here we give one application of the new metatheorem which does not seem to follow from the result in [3]. This is a theorem on models “representing” a given Scott set, which implies one half of a recent result of Solovay [18], on Turing degrees of models of particular completions of Peano arithmetic (PA).

This paper is concerned with a class K of models and an abstract notion of submodel ≤. Experience in first order model theory has shown the desirability of finding a ‘monster model’ to serve as a universal domain for K. In the original constructions of Jónsson and Fraïssé, K was a universal class and ordinary substructure played the role of ≤. Working with a cardinal λ satisfying λ<λ = λ guarantees appropriate downward Löwenheim-Skolem theorems; the existence and uniqueness of a homogeneous-universal model appears to depend centrally on the amalgamation property. We make this apparent dependence more precise in this paper.

The major innovation of this paper is the introduction of a weaker notion (chain homogeneous-universal) to replace the natural notion of (K, <)-homogeneous-universal model. Modulo a weak extension of ZFC (provable if V = L), we show (Corollary 5.24) that a class K obeying certain minimal restrictions satisfies a fundamental dichotomy. For arbitrarily large λ, either K has the maximal number of models in power λ or K has a unique chain homogeneous-universal model of power λ. We show (5.25) in a class with amalgamation this dichotomy holds for the notion of K-homogeneous-universal model in the more normal sense.

The methods here allow us to improve our earlier results [5] in two other ways: certain requirements on all chains of a given length are replaced by requiring winning strategies in certain games; the notion of a canonically prime model is avoided. A full understanding of these extensions requires consideration of the earlier papers but we summarize them quickly here.

We consider structural completeness in modal logics. The main result is the necessary and sufficient condition for modal logics over K4 to be hereditarily structurally complete: a modal logic λ is hereditarily structurally complete iff λ is not included in any logic from the list of twenty special tabular logics. Hence there are exactly twenty maximal structurally incomplete modal logics above K4 and they are all tabular.

We consider fine hierarchies in recursion theory, descriptive set theory, logic and complexity theory. The main results state that the sets of values of different Boolean terms coincide with the levels of suitable fine hierarchies. This gives new short descriptions of these hierarchies and shows that collections of sets of values of Boolean terms are almost well ordered by inclusion. For the sake of completeness we mention also some earlier results demonstrating the usefulness of fine hierarchies.

We prove that in IST, Nelson's internal set theory, the Uniqueness and Collection principles, hold for all (including external) formulas. A corollary of the Collection theorem shows that in IST there are no definable mappings of a set X onto a set Y of greater (not equal) cardinality unless both sets are finite and #(Y) ≤ n #(X) for some standard n. Proofs are based on a rather general technique which may be applied to other nonstandard structures. In particular we prove that in a nonstandard model of PA, Peano arithmetic, every hyperinteger uniquely definable by a formula of the PA language extended by the predicate of standardness, can be defined also by a pure PA formula.

If it is difficult to give the exact significance of consistency proofs from a classical point of view, in particular the proofs of Gentzen [2, 6], and Novikoff [14], the motivations of these proofs are quite clear intuitionistically. Their significance is then less to give a mere consistency proof than to present an intuitionistic explanation of the notion of classical truth. Gentzen for instance summarizes his proof as follows [6]: “Thus propositions of actualist mathematics seem to have a certain utility, but no sense. The major part of my consistency proof, however, consists precisely in ascribing a finitist sense to actualist propositions.” From this point of view, the main part of both Gentzen's and Novikoff's arguments can be stated as establishing that modus ponens is valid w.r.t. this interpretation ascribing a “finitist sense” to classical propositions.

In this paper, we reformulate Gentzen's and Novikoff's “finitist sense” of an arithmetic proposition as a winning strategy for a game associated to it. (To see a proof as a winning strategy has been considered by Lorenzen [10] for intuitionistic logic.) In the light of concurrency theory [7], it is tempting to consider a strategy as an interactive program (which represents thus the “finitist sense” of an arithmetic proposition). We shall show that the validity of modus ponens then gets a quite natural formulation, showing that “internal chatters” between two programs end eventually.

We first present Novikoff's notion of regular formulae, that can be seen as an intuitionistic truth definition for classical infinitary propositional calculus. We use this in order to motivate the second part, which presents a game-theoretic interpretation of the notion of regular formulae, and a proof of the admissibility of modus ponens which is based on this interpretation.