This work is a sequel to the author's Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, though it can be read independently by anyone familiar with Gödel's incompleteness theorem for Peano arithmetic. The book deals mainly with those aspects of recursion theory that have applications to the metamathematics of incompleteness, undecidability, and related topics. It is both an introduction to the theory and a presentation of new results in the field.
This work is a sequel to the author's Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, though it can be read independently by anyone familiar with Gödel's incompleteness theorem for Peano arithmetic. The book deals mainly with those aspects of recursion theory that have applications to the metamathematics of incompleteness, undecidability, and related topics. It is both an introduction to the theory and a presentation of new results in the field.
Metamath is a computer language and an associated computer program for archiving, verifying, and studying mathematical proofs. The Metamath language is simple and robust, with an almost total absence of hard-wired syntax, and we believe that it provides about the simplest possible framework that allows essentially all of mathematics to be expressed with absolute rigor. While simple, it is also powerful; the Metamath Proof Explorer (MPE) database has over 23,000 proven theorems and is one of the top systems in the "Formalizing 100 Theorems" challenge. This book explains the Metamath language and program, with specific emphasis on the fundamentals of the MPE database.
The main purpose of this book is to present a unified treatment of fixed points as they occur in Godel's incompleteness proofs, recursion theory, combinatory logic, semantics, and metamathematics. The book provides a survey of introductory material and a summary of recent research. The firstchapters are of an introductory nature and consist mainly of exercises with solutions given to most of them.
Descriptive Set Theory is the study of sets in separable, complete metric spaces that can be defined (or constructed), and so can be expected to have special properties not enjoyed by arbitrary pointsets. This subject was started by the French analysts at the turn of the 20th century, most prominently Lebesgue, and, initially, was concerned primarily with establishing regularity properties of Borel and Lebesgue measurable functions, and analytic, coanalytic, and projective sets. Its rapid development came to a halt in the late 1930s, primarily because it bumped against problems which were independent of classical axiomatic set theory. The field became very active again in the 1960s, with the introduction of strong set-theoretic hypotheses and methods from logic (especially recursion theory), which revolutionized it. This monograph develops Descriptive Set Theory systematically, from its classical roots to the modern ``effective'' theory and the consequences of strong (especially determinacy) hypotheses. The book emphasizes the foundations of the subject, and it sets the stage for the dramatic results (established since the 1980s) relating large cardinals and determinacy or allowing applications of Descriptive Set Theory to classical mathematics. The book includes all the necessary background from (advanced) set theory, logic and recursion theory.
Since their inception, the Perspectives in Logic and Lecture Notes in Logic series have published seminal works by leading logicians. Many of the original books in the series have been unavailable for years, but they are now in print once again. This volume, the sixteenth publication in the Lecture Notes in Logic series, gives a sustained presentation of a particular view of the topic of Gödelian extensions of theories. It presents the basic material in predicate logic, set theory and recursion theory, leading to a proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. The inexhaustibility of mathematics is treated based on the concept of transfinite progressions of theories as conceived by Turing and Feferman. All concepts and results are introduced as needed, making the presentation self-contained and thorough. Philosophers, mathematicians and others will find the book helpful in acquiring a basic grasp of the philosophical and logical results and issues.
