Unique existence, approximate solutions, and countable choice. (Q1427789)

The author investigates the use of the principle of countable choice in proofs of constructive mathematics. The author has the following two theses (which are not mathematical theorems) about constructive proofs: 1) Constructions of uniquely determined solutions presumably do not require choice; 2) approximate mathematics is closely related with choice-free construction. In order to verify his theses, he investigates several principles, and what can be proved without using choice. He first studies the least upper bound principle for Archimedean ordered Heyting fields and for the Dedekind reals. Then he investigates the exact intermediate value theorem, which one can prove for pointwise continuous \(f: [a,b] \rightarrow {\mathbb R}\), provided \(f({\mathbb Q} \cap [a,b]) \subseteq {\mathbb Q}\), and \(a,b\) are rational or \(f(a) < 0 < f(b)\), and for strictly increasing pointwise continuous \(f\). Next he investigates what one can prove concerning the uniform continuity principle UC constructively without using choice. UC is the principle that every pointwise continuous function on \([0,1]\) is uniformly continuous and follows constructively from the Heine-Borel covering principle stating that for every open covering of \([0,1]\) there is a finite subcovering. He argues that a good substitute for uniform continuity is strong continuity, where \(f:A \rightarrow B\) is strongly continuous, if two subsets of \(A\) are bounded away whenever its images are bounded away in \(B\). Finally he studies the approximate intermediate value theorem aIVT, which states that for every \(a,b \in M\), \(f: M \rightarrow {\mathbb R}\) and \(\varepsilon >0\) s.t. \(f(a) \leq 0 \leq f(b)\) there is an \(x \in M\) s.t. \(| f(x)| < \varepsilon\). He studies various properties of metric spaces \(M\) related to connectedness and convexity, and whether the aIVT holds for \(M\) fulfilling these properties. The article is written in an essay style which is almost philosophical, but contains as well lots of precise mathematical proofs. It is full of interesting ideas, but because of this style it is unfortunately sometimes hard to find out what has exactly been shown in this article.