3,754 research outputs found
On the mathematical and foundational significance of the uncountable
We study the logical and computational properties of basic theorems of
uncountable mathematics, including the Cousin and Lindel\"of lemma published in
1895 and 1903. Historically, these lemmas were among the first formulations of
open-cover compactness and the Lindel\"of property, respectively. These notions
are of great conceptual importance: the former is commonly viewed as a way of
treating uncountable sets like e.g. as 'almost finite', while the
latter allows one to treat uncountable sets like e.g. as 'almost
countable'. This reduction of the uncountable to the finite/countable turns out
to have a considerable logical and computational cost: we show that the
aforementioned lemmas, and many related theorems, are extremely hard to prove,
while the associated sub-covers are extremely hard to compute. Indeed, in terms
of the standard scale (based on comprehension axioms), a proof of these lemmas
requires at least the full extent of second-order arithmetic, a system
originating from Hilbert-Bernays' Grundlagen der Mathematik. This observation
has far-reaching implications for the Grundlagen's spiritual successor, the
program of Reverse Mathematics, and the associated G\"odel hierachy. We also
show that the Cousin lemma is essential for the development of the gauge
integral, a generalisation of the Lebesgue and improper Riemann integrals that
also uniquely provides a direct formalisation of Feynman's path integral.Comment: 35 pages with one figure. The content of this version extends the
published version in that Sections 3.3.4 and 3.4 below are new. Small
corrections/additions have also been made to reflect new development
Effective Choice and Boundedness Principles in Computable Analysis
In this paper we study a new approach to classify mathematical theorems
according to their computational content. Basically, we are asking the question
which theorems can be continuously or computably transferred into each other?
For this purpose theorems are considered via their realizers which are
operations with certain input and output data. The technical tool to express
continuous or computable relations between such operations is Weihrauch
reducibility and the partially ordered degree structure induced by it. We have
identified certain choice principles which are cornerstones among Weihrauch
degrees and it turns out that certain core theorems in analysis can be
classified naturally in this structure. In particular, we study theorems such
as the Intermediate Value Theorem, the Baire Category Theorem, the Banach
Inverse Mapping Theorem and others. We also explore how existing
classifications of the Hahn-Banach Theorem and Weak K"onig's Lemma fit into
this picture. We compare the results of our classification with existing
classifications in constructive and reverse mathematics and we claim that in a
certain sense our classification is finer and sheds some new light on the
computational content of the respective theorems. We develop a number of
separation techniques based on a new parallelization principle, on certain
invariance properties of Weihrauch reducibility, on the Low Basis Theorem of
Jockusch and Soare and based on the Baire Category Theorem. Finally, we present
a number of metatheorems that allow to derive upper bounds for the
classification of the Weihrauch degree of many theorems and we discuss the
Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem as an example
Probabilistic Computability and Choice
We study the computational power of randomized computations on infinite
objects, such as real numbers. In particular, we introduce the concept of a Las
Vegas computable multi-valued function, which is a function that can be
computed on a probabilistic Turing machine that receives a random binary
sequence as auxiliary input. The machine can take advantage of this random
sequence, but it always has to produce a correct result or to stop the
computation after finite time if the random advice is not successful. With
positive probability the random advice has to be successful. We characterize
the class of Las Vegas computable functions in the Weihrauch lattice with the
help of probabilistic choice principles and Weak Weak K\H{o}nig's Lemma. Among
other things we prove an Independent Choice Theorem that implies that Las Vegas
computable functions are closed under composition. In a case study we show that
Nash equilibria are Las Vegas computable, while zeros of continuous functions
with sign changes cannot be computed on Las Vegas machines. However, we show
that the latter problem admits randomized algorithms with weaker failure
recognition mechanisms. The last mentioned results can be interpreted such that
the Intermediate Value Theorem is reducible to the jump of Weak Weak
K\H{o}nig's Lemma, but not to Weak Weak K\H{o}nig's Lemma itself. These
examples also demonstrate that Las Vegas computable functions form a proper
superclass of the class of computable functions and a proper subclass of the
class of non-deterministically computable functions. We also study the impact
of specific lower bounds on the success probabilities, which leads to a strict
hierarchy of classes. In particular, the classical technique of probability
amplification fails for computations on infinite objects. We also investigate
the dependency on the underlying probability space.Comment: Information and Computation (accepted for publication
Computation with Advice
Computation with advice is suggested as generalization of both computation
with discrete advice and Type-2 Nondeterminism. Several embodiments of the
generic concept are discussed, and the close connection to Weihrauch
reducibility is pointed out. As a novel concept, computability with random
advice is studied; which corresponds to correct solutions being guessable with
positive probability. In the framework of computation with advice, it is
possible to define computational complexity for certain concepts of
hypercomputation. Finally, some examples are given which illuminate the
interplay of uniform and non-uniform techniques in order to investigate both
computability with advice and the Weihrauch lattice
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