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Definability in rationals with real order in the background

  • Microsoft USA

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The paper deals with logically definable families of sets (or point-sets) of rational numbers. In particular we are interested whether the families definable over the real line with a unary predicate for the rationals are definable over the rational order alone. Let φ(X, Y) and ψ(Y) range over formulas in the first-order monadic language of order. Let Q be the set of rationals and F be the family of subsets J of Q such that φ(Q, J) holds over the real line. The question arises whether, for every φ, F can be defined by means of an appropriate ψ(Y) interpreted over the rational order. We answer the question negatively. The answer remains negative if the first-order logic is strengthened to weak monadic second-order logic. The answer is positive for the restricted version of monadic second-order logic where set quantifiers range over open sets. The case of full monadic second-order logic remains open.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-11
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Logic and Computation
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2002

Keywords

  • Definability
  • Expressibility
  • Monadic logic of order

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