The Small-Is-Very-Small Principle

DOI10.1002/MALQ.201800088MaRDI QIDQ6301104arXivFDO

Authors Albert Visser

Publication date 3 May 2018

Published in arXiv

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1002/MALQ.201800088

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Models of arithmetic and set theory (03C62) First-order arithmetic and fragments (03F30) Gödel numberings and issues of incompleteness (03F40) Nonstandard models of arithmetic (03H15)

arXiv classification

math.LO

Abstract: The central result of this paper is the small-is-very-small principle for restricted sequential theories. The principle says roughly that whenever the given theory shows that a property has a small witness, i.e. a witness in every definable cut, then it shows that the property has a very small witness: i.e. a witness below a given standard number. We draw various consequences from the central result. For example (in rough formulations): (i) Every restricted, recursively enumerable sequential theory has a finitely axiomatized extension that is conservative w.r.t. formulas of complexity $leqn$. (ii) Every sequential model has, for any $n$, an extension that is elementary for formulas of complexity $leqn$, in which the intersection of all definable cuts is the natural numbers. (iii) We have reflection for $Sigm{a}_2^0$-sentences with sufficiently small witness in any consistent restricted theory $U$. (iv) Suppose $U$ is recursively enumerable and sequential. Suppose further that every recursively enumerable and sequential $V$ that locally inteprets $U$, globally interprets $U$. Then, $U$ is mutually globally interpretable with a finitely axiomatized sequential theory. The paper contains some careful groundwork developing partial satisfaction predicates in sequential theories for the complexity measure depth of quantifier alternations.

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