In mathematics, specifically set theory, the continuum hypothesis is a hypothesis about the possible sizes of infinite sets. It states:
"There is no set whose cardinality is strictly between that of the integers and the real numbers."
In computability theory, the Church–Turing thesis is a thesis about the nature of computable functions. It states that a function on the natural numbers can be calculated by an effective method if and only if it is computable by a Turing machine. The thesis is named after American mathematician Alonzo Church and the British mathematician Alan Turing. Before the precise definition of computable function, mathematicians often used the informal term effectively calculable to describe functions that are computable by paper-and-pencil methods. In the 1930s, several independent attempts were made to formalize the notion of computability:
In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between formal theories, and their models. The aspects investigated include the number and size of models of a theory, the relationship of different models to each other, and their interaction with the formal language itself. In particular, model theorists also investigate the sets that can be defined in a model of a theory, and the relationship of such definable sets to each other. As a separate discipline, model theory goes back to Alfred Tarski, who first used the term "Theory of Models" in publication in 1954. Since the 1970s, the subject has been shaped decisively by Saharon Shelah's stability theory.
Stephen Arthur Cook is an American-Canadian computer scientist and mathematician who has made significant contributions to the fields of complexity theory and proof complexity. He is a university professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, Department of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics.
Computability theory, also known as recursion theory, is a branch of mathematical logic, computer science, and the theory of computation that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has since expanded to include the study of generalized computability and definability. In these areas, computability theory overlaps with proof theory and effective descriptive set theory.
In computability theory, a set S of natural numbers is called computably enumerable (c.e.), recursively enumerable (r.e.), semidecidable, partially decidable, listable, provable or Turing-recognizable if:
In computability theory and computational complexity theory, a many-one reduction is a reduction that converts instances of one decision problem to another decision problem using a computable function. The reduced instance is in the language if and only if the initial instance is in its language . Thus if we can decide whether instances are in the language , we can decide whether instances are in its language by applying the reduction and solving for . Thus, reductions can be used to measure the relative computational difficulty of two problems. It is said that reduces to if, in layman's terms is at least as hard to solve as . This means that any algorithm that solves can also be used as part of a program that solves .
Tarski's undefinability theorem, stated and proved by Alfred Tarski in 1933, is an important limitative result in mathematical logic, the foundations of mathematics, and in formal semantics. Informally, the theorem states that "arithmetical truth cannot be defined in arithmetic".
In computer science and mathematical logic the Turing degree or degree of unsolvability of a set of natural numbers measures the level of algorithmic unsolvability of the set.
Neil Immerman is an American theoretical computer scientist, a professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is one of the key developers of descriptive complexity, an approach he is currently applying to research in model checking, database theory, and computational complexity theory.
In computability theory, the Turing jump or Turing jump operator, named for Alan Turing, is an operation that assigns to each decision problem X a successively harder decision problem X′ with the property that X′ is not decidable by an oracle machine with an oracle for X.
In mathematical logic, second-order arithmetic is a collection of axiomatic systems that formalize the natural numbers and their subsets. It is an alternative to axiomatic set theory as a foundation for much, but not all, of mathematics.
In mathematics, an impossibility theorem is a theorem that demonstrates a problem or general set of problems cannot be solved. These are also known as proofs of impossibility, negative proofs, or negative results. Impossibility theorems often resolve decades or centuries of work spent looking for a solution by proving there is no solution. Proving that something is impossible is usually much harder than the opposite task, as it is often necessary to develop a proof that works in general, rather than to just show a particular example. Impossibility theorems are usually expressible as negative existential propositions or universal propositions in logic.
The Association for Symbolic Logic (ASL) is an international organization of specialists in mathematical logic and philosophical logic. The ASL was founded in 1936, and its first president was Curt John Ducasse. The current president of the ASL is Phokion Kolaitis.
Alex James Wilkie FRS is a British mathematician known for his contributions to model theory and logic. Previously Reader in Mathematical Logic at the University of Oxford, he was appointed to the Fielden Chair of Pure Mathematics at the University of Manchester in 2007.
A timeline of mathematical logic; see also history of logic.
In mathematical logic, true arithmetic is the set of all true first-order statements about the arithmetic of natural numbers. This is the theory associated with the standard model of the Peano axioms in the language of the first-order Peano axioms. True arithmetic is occasionally called Skolem arithmetic, though this term usually refers to the different theory of natural numbers with multiplication.
Marcia Jean Groszek is an American mathematician whose research concerns mathematical logic, set theory, forcing, and recursion theory. She is a professor of mathematics at Dartmouth College.
The Gödel Lecture is an honor in mathematical logic given by the Association for Symbolic Logic, associated with an annual lecture at the association's general meeting. The award is named after Kurt Gödel and has been given annually since 1990.
