The generalized continuum hypothesis can fail everywhere (Q2639060)

As has been shown by Easton and Menas, the theorems of König and Cantor are the only restrictions on the behaviour of the power set operation at regular cardinals, even if there are supercompact cardinals. Singular cardinals, however, present a more intriguing matter. Thus the following problem due to Patai has been left open since 1930: Does PH, \(2^{\kappa}=\kappa^{(n+)}\) for each cardinal \(\kappa\) and some fixed \(n\geq 1\) \((\kappa^{(2+)}=\kappa^{++})\) imply the GCH? If there is a strongly compact cardinal \(\kappa\), then PH\(\Rightarrow GCH\), since \(2^{\lambda}=\lambda^+\) for all strong limit cardinals \(\lambda >\kappa\) (Solovay). The present paper is a significant contribution towards the negative answer to this problem. The authors show that it is consistent relatively to the existence of a supercompact cardinal \(\kappa\) with infinitely many inaccessible cardinals above \(\kappa\), that \(2^{\lambda}>\lambda^+\) for all cardinals \(\lambda\). They also indicate how to improve their construction to obtain Woodin's solution to Patai's problem: \(2^{\lambda}=\lambda^{++}\) for all \(\lambda\) is consistent relatively to \(\kappa\) such that \(P^ 2(\kappa)\) is hypermeasurable. Some large cardinal assumption is necessary, for if \(O^{\#}\) does not exist, then PH\(\Rightarrow GCH\) (Jensen).