933 research outputs found
Exhaustible sets in higher-type computation
We say that a set is exhaustible if it admits algorithmic universal
quantification for continuous predicates in finite time, and searchable if
there is an algorithm that, given any continuous predicate, either selects an
element for which the predicate holds or else tells there is no example. The
Cantor space of infinite sequences of binary digits is known to be searchable.
Searchable sets are exhaustible, and we show that the converse also holds for
sets of hereditarily total elements in the hierarchy of continuous functionals;
moreover, a selection functional can be constructed uniformly from a
quantification functional. We prove that searchable sets are closed under
intersections with decidable sets, and under the formation of computable images
and of finite and countably infinite products. This is related to the fact,
established here, that exhaustible sets are topologically compact. We obtain a
complete description of exhaustible total sets by developing a computational
version of a topological Arzela--Ascoli type characterization of compact
subsets of function spaces. We also show that, in the non-empty case, they are
precisely the computable images of the Cantor space. The emphasis of this paper
is on the theory of exhaustible and searchable sets, but we also briefly sketch
applications
Kurt Gödel and Computability Theory
Although Kurt Gödel does not figure prominently in the history of computabilty theory, he exerted a significant influence on some of the founders of the field, both through his published work and through personal interaction. In particular, Gödel’s 1931 paper on incompleteness and the methods developed therein were important for the early development of recursive function theory and the lambda calculus at the hands of Church, Kleene, and Rosser. Church and his students studied Gödel 1931, and Gödel taught a seminar at Princeton in 1934. Seen in the historical context, Gödel was an important catalyst for the emergence of computability theory in the mid 1930s
Computability and analysis: the legacy of Alan Turing
We discuss the legacy of Alan Turing and his impact on computability and
analysis.Comment: 49 page
Global semantic typing for inductive and coinductive computing
Inductive and coinductive types are commonly construed as ontological
(Church-style) types, denoting canonical data-sets such as natural numbers,
lists, and streams. For various purposes, notably the study of programs in the
context of global semantics, it is preferable to think of types as semantical
properties (Curry-style). Intrinsic theories were introduced in the late 1990s
to provide a purely logical framework for reasoning about programs and their
semantic types. We extend them here to data given by any combination of
inductive and coinductive definitions. This approach is of interest because it
fits tightly with syntactic, semantic, and proof theoretic fundamentals of
formal logic, with potential applications in implicit computational complexity
as well as extraction of programs from proofs. We prove a Canonicity Theorem,
showing that the global definition of program typing, via the usual (Tarskian)
semantics of first-order logic, agrees with their operational semantics in the
intended model. Finally, we show that every intrinsic theory is interpretable
in a conservative extension of first-order arithmetic. This means that
quantification over infinite data objects does not lead, on its own, to
proof-theoretic strength beyond that of Peano Arithmetic. Intrinsic theories
are perfectly amenable to formulas-as-types Curry-Howard morphisms, and were
used to characterize major computational complexity classes Their extensions
described here have similar potential which has already been applied
Comparing hierarchies of total functionals
In this paper we consider two hierarchies of hereditarily total and
continuous functionals over the reals based on one extensional and one
intensional representation of real numbers, and we discuss under which
asumptions these hierarchies coincide. This coincidense problem is equivalent
to a statement about the topology of the Kleene-Kreisel continuous functionals.
As a tool of independent interest, we show that the Kleene-Kreisel functionals
may be embedded into both these hierarchies.Comment: 28 page
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