Topological Extensions and Subspaces of ηα-sets

The ηx-sets of Hausdorff have large compactifications (of cardinality ≽ exp(α); and of cardinality ≽ exp(exp(2\u3cα)) in the Stone-Čech case). If Qα denotes the unique (when it exists) ηα -set of cardinality α, then Qα can be decomposed (= partitioned) into homeomorphs of any prescribed nonempty subspace; moreover the subspaces of Qα can be characterized as those which arc regular T1, of cardinality and weight ≼ α, whose topologies are closed under \u3c α intersections

What\u27s So Special About Kruskal\u27s Theorem and the Ordinal \u3cem\u3eT\u3c/em\u3e\u3csub\u3eo\u3c/sub\u3e? A Survey of Some Results in Proof Theory

This paper consists primarily of a survey of results of Harvey Friedman about some proof theoretic aspects of various forms of Krusal\u27s tree theorem, and in particular the connection with the ordinal Ƭo. We also include a fairly extensive treatment of normal functions on the countable ordinals, and we give a glimpse of Veblen Hierarchies, some subsystems of second-order logic, slow-growing and fast-growing hierarchies including Girard\u27s result, and Goodstein sequences. The central theme of this paper is a powerful theorem due to Kruskal, the tree theorem , as well as a finite miniaturization of Kruskal\u27s theorem due to Harvey Friedman. These versions of Kruskal\u27s theorem are remarkable from a proof-theoretic point of view because they are not provable in relatively strong logical systems. They are examples of so-called natural independence phenomena , which are considered by more logicians as more natural than the mathematical incompleteness results first discovered by Gödel. Kruskal\u27s tree theorem also plays a fundamental role in computer science, because it is one of the main tools for showing that certain orderings on trees are well founded. These orderings play a crucial role in proving the termination of systems of rewrite rules and the correctness of Knuth-Bandix completion procedures. There is also a close connection between a certain infinite countable ordinal called Ƭoand Kruskal\u27s theorem. Previous definitions of the function involved in this connection are known to be incorrect, in that, the function is not monotonic. We offer a repaired definition of this function, and explore briefly the consequences of its existence

Global Time in Actor Computations

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship in mathematics.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory National Science Foundatio

Typing Untyped Lambda-Terms, or Reducibility Strikes Again!

It was observed by Curry that when (untyped) λ-terms can be assigned types, for example, simple types, these terms have nice properties (for example, they are strongly normalizing). Coppo, Dezani, and Veneri, introduced type systems using conjunctive types, and showed that several important classes of (untyped) terms can be characterized according to the shape of the types that can be assigned to these terms. For example, the strongly normalizable terms, the normalizable terms, and the terms having head-normal forms, can be characterized in some systems D and DΩ. The proofs use variants of the method of reducibility. In this paper, we present a uniform approach for proving several meta-theorems relating properties of λ-terms and their typability in the systems D and DΩ. Our proofs use a new and more modular version of the reducibility method. As an application of our metatheorems, we show how the characterizations obtained by Coppo, Dezani, Veneri, and Pottinger, can be easily rederived. We also characterize the terms that have weak head-normal forms, which appears to be new. We conclude by stating a number of challenging open problems regarding possible generalizations of the realizability method