Is the missing axiom of matroid theory lost forever?

DOI10.1093/QMATH/HAT031zbMATH Open1305.05040arXiv1204.3365OpenAlexW2800857566WikidataQ114009664 ScholiaQ114009664MaRDI QIDQ2939482FDOQ2939482

Authors: Dillon Mayhew, Geoff Whittle, Mike Newman 

Publication date: 22 January 2015

Published in: The Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We conjecture that it is not possible to finitely axiomatize matroid representability in monadic second-order logic for matroids, and we describe some partial progress towards this conjecture. We present a collection of sentences in monadic second-order logic and show that it is possible to finitely axiomatize matroids using only sentences in this collection. Moreover, we can also axiomatize representability over any fixed finite field (assuming Rota's conjecture holds). We prove that it is not possible to finitely axiomatize representability, or representability over any fixed infinite field, using sentences from the collection.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.3365

Recommendations

• Yes, the ``missing axiom of matroid theory is lost forever
• On axiomatizability of the class of finitary matroids and decidability of their universal theory
• Parameterized and Exact Computation
• Towards a matroid-minor structure theory
• Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2003

zbMATH Keywords

monadic second-order logicmatroid representability

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of matroids and geometric lattices (05B35) Models of other mathematical theories (03C65)

Cited In (8)

• The geometry of gaussoids
• Excluded minors for matroids satisfying Kinser's inequalities
• On the number of matroids
• Rota’s Conjecture, the Missing Axiom, and Prime Cycles in Toric Varieties
• Combinatorics and Hodge theory
• Yes, the “missing axiom” of matroid theory is lost forever
• Matroid Theory for Algebraic Geometers
• Positively oriented matroids are realizable

This page was built for publication: Is the missing axiom of matroid theory lost forever?

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2939482)