Articles by two American mathematicians, E. V. Huntington and Oswald Veblen, are discussed as examples of a movement in foundational research in the period 1900–1930 called American postulate theory. This movement also included E. H. Moore, R. L. Moore, C. H. Langford, H. M. Sheffer, C. J. Keyser, and others. The articles discussed exemplify American postulate theorists' standards for axiomatizations of mathematical theories, and their investigations of such axiomatizations with respect to metatheoretic properties such as independence, completeness, and consistency.

Here we consider some problems concerning regular types. In the first place we consider a strongly minimal set D. One can ask what is the strength of the assumption that D has (full) elimination of imaginaries (namely, every definable set X over D has as canonical parameter some tuple from D). We show that D cannot be locally modular. Nontriviality of D is immediate. However, to exclude the locally modular nontrivial case one has to understand structures of the form G/E, where G is a modular strongly minimal group and E is a definable equivalence relation on G with finite classes. We show that the quotient structure G/E can be obtained in two steps. First quotient by a finite subgroup K of G to obtain a strongly minimal group H. Now let Γ be a finite subgroup of the group Aff(H) of definable affine automorphisms of H (namely maps of the form x → αx + a, where α is a definable automorphism of H and a ∈ H), and quotient H by Γ (namely form the orbit space of H under Γ). It can clearly be arranged that Γ contains no nontrivial subgroup of translations.

In the second place we look at a nontrivial modular regular type p whose pregeometry is actually a geometry. The geometry is then known to be (infinite-dimensional) projective geometry over a division ring F. We ask whether F is definable (internally to p). If F is finite, this is clear. In fact in this case p must have U-rank 1. So we assume F to be infinite. We are only able to show definability of F in the case where F is a field, using some results on 2-transitive subgroups of PGL [V]. Moreover in the superstable case we also observe that p is isolated.

In this note we construct Martin-Löf's inconsistent type theory, Type: Type (Martin-Löf [1971]), inside partial type theory with one universe. Thus adding a fixed point operator to type theory with one predicative universe gives impredicativity.

We may describe the theory Type:Type as follows. It contains the rules for the product construction (II) of Martin-Löf [1984] except the η-rule and it contains the usual rules for definitional equality (=). Moreover it contains the following strongly impredicative universe

This theory is inconsistent (i.e. every set is inhabited), and this is seen by proving a variant of the Burali—Forti paradox—Girard's paradox—cf. Troelstra and van Dalen [1988]. Coquand [199?] has shown that by adding the well-order type and the strong dependent sum to the universe, the fixed point operator becomes definable. It is an open problem whether it is definable without the well-order type. The present result could be seen as a converse, namely by adding the fixed point operator to type theory with one universe, Type:Type becomes definable and, as is already known, so does the well-order type.

In a nonstandard universe, the κ-saturation property states that any family of fewer than κ internal sets with the finite intersection property has a nonempty intersection. An ordered field F is said to have the λ-Bolzano-Weierstrass property iff F has cofinality λ and every bounded λ-sequence in F has a convergent λ-subsequence. We show that if κ < λ are uncountable regular cardinals and βα < λ whenever α < κ and β < λ then there is a κ-saturated nonstandard universe in which the hyperreal numbers have the λ-Bolzano-Weierstrass property. The result also applies to certain fragments of set theory and second order arithmetic.

We define an ℜ-group to be a stable group with the property that a generic element (for any definable transitive group action) can only be algebraic over a generic. We then derive some corollaries for ℜ-groups and fields, and prove a decomposition theorem and a field theorem. As a nonsuperstable example, we prove that small stable groups are ℜ-groups.

In [1] S. Buss introduced systems of bounded arithmetic , , , (i = 1, 2, 3, …). and are first order systems and and are second order systems. and are closely related to and respectively in the polynomial hierarchy, and and are closely related to PSPACE and EXPTIME respectively. One of the most important problems in bounded arithmetic is whether the hierarchy of bounded arithmetic collapses, i.e. whether = or = for some i, or whether = , or whether is a conservative extension of S 2 = ⋃ i . These problems are relevant to the problems whether the polynomial hierarchy PH collapses or whether PSPACE = PH or whether PSPACE = EXPTIME. It was shown in [4] that = implies and consequently the collapse of the polynomial hierarchy. We believe that the separation problems of bounded arithmetic and the separation problems of computational complexities are essentially the same problem, and the solution of one of them will lead to the solution of the other.

The main result of this paper is that if κ is not a weakly Mahlo cardinal, then the following two conditions are equivalent:

1. is κ+-complete.

2. is a prenormal ideal.

Our result is a generalization of an announcement made in [Z]. We say that is selective iff for every -function f: κ → κ there is a set X ∈ such that f∣(κ − X) is one-to-one. Our theorem provides a positive partial answer to a question of B. Wȩglorz from [BTW, p. 90], viz.: is every selective ideal with κ+-complete, isomorphic to a normal ideal?

The theorem is also true for fine ideals on [λ]<κ for any κ ≤ λ, i.e. if κ is not a weakly Mahlo cardinal then the Boolean algebra is λ+-complete iff is a prenormal ideal (in the sense of [λ/<κ).

The most basic construction of an r.e. nonrecursive set—e.g. of the halting problem—proceeds by taking the diagonal of a recursive enumeration of all r.e. sets. We will answer the question of which r.e. sets can be constructed in this manner.

If ψ is a computable numbering of some class of partial recursive functions, we define the diagonal of ψ to be the set K ψ ≔ {i ∈ ω ∣ ψ i (i)↓}- It is well known that K φ is creative if φ is a Gödelnumbering, and that for each creative set K there exists a Gödelnumbering φ such that K = K φ. That is to say, the class of diagonals of Gödelnumberings is characterized as the class of creative sets. This class was shown to be elementary lattice theoretic (e.l.t.) by Harrington (see [So87, XV. 1.1]).

We give a characterization of diagonals of arbitrary computable numberings of the class P 1 of all partial recursive functions. To this end we introduce the notion of a semihyperhypersimple (shhs) set, which generalizes the notion of hyperhypersimplicity to nonsimple sets. It is shown that the diagonals of numberings of P 1 are exactly the non-shhs sets. Then, properties of shhs sets are discussed. For example, for each nonrecursive r.e. set A there exists a nonrecursive shhs set B ≤ T A, but not every r.e. T-degree contains a shhs set. These results build upon previous work by Downey and Stob [DSta].

The question whether the property “shhs” is (elementary) lattice theoretic remains open. A positive answer would give both an analog of Harrington's result mentioned above, and a generalization of the well-known fact, due to Lachlan [La68], that hyperhypersimplicity is e.l.t. Therefore, we suspect that shhs sets turn out to be useful in the study of the lattice of r.e. sets.

Previously, for several constructions from recursion theory the role of the underlying numbering of P 1 was investigated; see Martin ([Ma66a] or [So87, V.4.1]) and Lachlan ([La75] or [Od89, III.9.2]) for Post's simple set, and Jockusch and Soare ([JS73]; cf. also [So87, XII.3.6, 3.7]) for Post's hypersimple set. However, only Gödelnumberings were considered. An explanation for the greater variety which arises when arbitrary numberings of P 1 are admitted is provided by the fact that the index set of Gödelnumberings is less complex than the index set of all numberings of P 1. The former is Σ1-complete; the latter is Π4-complete.

Let ω be the set of natural numbers, i.e. {0, 1, 2, 3, …}. A string is a mapping from an initial segment of ω into {0, 1}. We identify a set A ≤ ω with its characteristic function. A set A ≤ ω is called n-generic if it is Cohen-generic for n-quantifier arithmetic. This is equivalent to saying that for every set of strings S, there is a σ < A such that σ ∈ S or (∀ν ≥ σ)(ν ∉ S). By degree we mean Turing degree (of unsolvability). We call a degree n-generic if it has an n-generic representative. For a degree a, D(≤ a) denotes the set of degrees recursive in a.

The relation between generic degrees and minimal degrees has been widely studied. Spector [9] proved the existence of minimal degrees. Shoenfield [8] simplified the proof by using trees. In the construction of a minimal degree, given σ we extend σ to ν so that ν is in the (splitting or nonsplitting) subtree of a given tree. But in the construction of a generic set, given σ we extend σ to ν to meet the given dense set. So these two constructions are quite different. Jockusch [5] showed that any 2-generic degree bounds no minimal degree. Chong and Jockusch [3] showed that any 1-generic degree below 0′ bounds no minimal degree.