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Every countable model of set theory embeds into its own constructible universe
The main theorem of this article is that every countable model of set theory
M, including every well-founded model, is isomorphic to a submodel of its own
constructible universe. In other words, there is an embedding that
is elementary for quantifier-free assertions. The proof uses universal digraph
combinatorics, including an acyclic version of the countable random digraph,
which I call the countable random Q-graded digraph, and higher analogues
arising as uncountable Fraisse limits, leading to the hypnagogic digraph, a
set-homogeneous, class-universal, surreal-numbers-graded acyclic class digraph,
closely connected with the surreal numbers. The proof shows that contains
a submodel that is a universal acyclic digraph of rank . The method of
proof also establishes that the countable models of set theory are linearly
pre-ordered by embeddability: for any two countable models of set theory, one
of them is isomorphic to a submodel of the other. Indeed, they are
pre-well-ordered by embedability in order-type exactly .
Specifically, the countable well-founded models are ordered by embeddability in
accordance with the heights of their ordinals; every shorter model embeds into
every taller model; every model of set theory is universal for all
countable well-founded binary relations of rank at most ; and every
ill-founded model of set theory is universal for all countable acyclic binary
relations. Finally, strengthening a classical theorem of Ressayre, the same
proof method shows that if is any nonstandard model of PA, then every
countable model of set theory---in particular, every model of ZFC---is
isomorphic to a submodel of the hereditarily finite sets of . Indeed,
is universal for all countable acyclic binary relations.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures. Questions and commentary can be made at
http://jdh.hamkins.org/every-model-embeds-into-own-constructible-universe.
(v2 adds a reference and makes minor corrections) (v3 includes further
changes, and removes the previous theorem 15, which was incorrect.
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