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Logic and Computation Seminar

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 3:30pm

Nate Ackerman

University of California, Berkeley

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL 4C8

One of the most remarkable results in finite model theory is that for any first order formula \phi the limit as n -> infinity of {M models \phi: |M| =n} / {M:|M| = n} is either 0 or 1. In other words, any formula is realized asymptotically almost surely or asymptotically almost never. This is called the 0-1 law for first order logic.

Since its discovery there have been several other 0-1 laws proved for collections of finite structures which satisfied some condition, such as being a graph, or a triangle free graph, or a partial order.

Now given any first order theory T we can look at the collection of finite subsets of models of T and we can ask if those finite subsets have a 0-1 law (i.e., does any formula asymptotically almost surely hold or asymptotically almost never hold). In the case that there is a 0-1 law the resulting theory is not necessarily the same as T.

This gives us a map 01Law from complete theories to (possibly incomplete) theories. We can then ask "How computable can the output, 01Law(T), be when the input, T, is a computable complete theory?"

In this talk we will prove that provided T is computable and 01Law(T) is complete then 01Law(T) must be computable from the halting problem. We will also show that every set computable from the halting problem is, in a strong sense, reducible to a theory of the form 01Law(T) for a computable T.

If we have time we will also discuss other properties of the 01Law operator, such as showing that for any countable ordinal \alpha there is a theory such that 01Law can be iterated \alpha many times with each iteration being a complete theory.