All Questions
23 questions
298
votes
34
answers
53k
views
What are some reasonable-sounding statements that are independent of ZFC?
Every now and then, somebody will tell me about a question. When I start thinking about it, they say, "actually, it's undecidable in ZFC."
For example, suppose $A$ is an abelian group such ...
107
votes
36
answers
21k
views
Interesting examples of vacuous / void entities
I included this footnote in a paper in which I mentioned that the number of partitions of the empty set is 1 (every member of any partition is a non-empty set, and of course every member of the empty ...
143
votes
12
answers
30k
views
Solutions to the Continuum Hypothesis
Related MO questions: What is the general opinion on the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis? ; Completion of ZFC ; Complete resolutions of GCH How far wrong could the Continuum Hypothesis be? When was ...
- 24.7k
96
votes
16
answers
34k
views
Most 'unintuitive' application of the Axiom of Choice?
It is well-known that the axiom of choice is equivalent to many other assumptions, such as the well-ordering principle, Tychonoff's theorem, and the fact that every vector space has a basis. Even ...
135
votes
43
answers
38k
views
What are the most attractive Turing undecidable problems in mathematics?
What are the most attractive Turing undecidable problems in mathematics?
There are thousands of examples, so please post here only the most attractive, best examples. Some examples already appear on ...
64
votes
15
answers
7k
views
Unnecessary uses of the axiom of choice
What examples are there of habitual but unnecessary uses of the axiom of
choice, in any area of mathematics except topology?
I'm interested in standard proofs that use the axiom of choice, but where
...
60
votes
15
answers
11k
views
Abstract thought vs calculation
Jeremy Avigad and Erich Reck claim that one factor leading to abstract mathematics in the late 19th century (as opposed to concrete mathematics or hard analysis) was the use of more abstract notions ...
35
votes
15
answers
2k
views
Objects which can't be defined without making choices but which end up independent of the choice
It happens a lot of times that when one defines a new object (ring, module, space, group, algebra, morphism, whatever) out of given data, one first chooses some additional structure. And sometimes (...
19
votes
14
answers
4k
views
Excellent uses of induction and recursion
Can you make an example of a great proof by induction or construction by recursion?
Given that you already have your own idea of what "great" means, here it can also be taken to mean that the chosen ...
18
votes
15
answers
14k
views
undergraduate logic textbook
I am going to teach the standard undergraduate Logic course for math and engineering majors. What are good (bad) text-books and why. I have not taught that course for a while and wonder if there are ...
9
votes
2
answers
473
views
Completing half of Hilbert's program: Foundations that are conservative over Peano Arithmetic
The goal of the Hilbert program was to find a complete and consistent formalization of mathematics. Gödel's first incompleteness theorem establishes that completeness is impossible with first-order ...
- 6,353
150
votes
45
answers
30k
views
Nontrivial theorems with trivial proofs
A while back I saw posted on someone's office door a statement attributed to some famous person, saying that it is an instance of the callousness of youth to think that a theorem is trivial because ...
73
votes
9
answers
29k
views
What are some important but still unsolved problems in mathematical logic?
In the past, first-order logic and its completeness and whether arithmetic is complete was a major unsolved issues in logic . All of these problems were solved by Godel. Later on, independence of ...
69
votes
19
answers
9k
views
What are some results in mathematics that have snappy proofs using model theory?
I am preparing to teach a short course on "applied model theory" at UGA this summer. To draw people in, I am looking to create a BIG LIST of results in mathematics that have nice proofs ...
- 65.4k
51
votes
30
answers
8k
views
Taking a theorem as a definition and proving the original definition as a theorem
Gian-Carlo Rota's famous 1991 essay, "The pernicious influence of mathematics upon philosophy" contains the following passage:
Perform the following thought experiment. Suppose that you are ...
45
votes
8
answers
10k
views
What is Realistic Mathematics?
This post is partially about opinions and partially about more precise mathematical questions. Most of this post is not as formal as a precise mathematical question. However, I hope that most readers ...
- 25.5k
28
votes
13
answers
4k
views
Are there any good nonconstructive "existential metatheorems"?
Are there any good examples of theorems in reasonably expressive theories (like Peano arithmetic) for which it is substantially easier to prove (in a metatheory) that a proof exists than it is ...
26
votes
9
answers
8k
views
Why are proofs so valuable, although we do not know that our axiom system is consistent? [closed]
As a person who has been spending significant time to learn mathematics, I have to admit that I sometimes find the fact uncovered by Godel very upsetting: we never can know that our axiom system is ...
23
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Statements in differential geometry independent from ZFC
It is well known that some problems in functional analysis and in general topology are independent from ZFC: to name a few, Kaplansky's conjecture, the existence of outer automorphisms of the Calkin ...
18
votes
2
answers
1k
views
What notable theorems cannot be automatically proven without choice using Shoenfield absoluteness?
There have been a couple of recent questions, here and here, regarding the role of the axiom of choice in real-analytic results with applicability to general relativity. This lead me to look at some ...
- 12.5k
17
votes
7
answers
2k
views
Non-constructive proofs of decidability?
Are there examples of sets of natural numbers that are proven to be decidable but by non-constructive proofs only?
16
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Major applications of the internal language of toposes
What are the major applications of the internal language of toposes?
Here are a few applications I know:
Mulvey's proof of the Serre–Swan theorem in which he interprets the intuitionistically valid ...
2
votes
1
answer
267
views
Maximality statements that cannot be proved using $\mathsf{ZL}$ [closed]
What are examples for maximality statements that cannot be proved using Zorn's Lemma?
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