Inaccessible cardinalIn set theory, an uncountable cardinal is inaccessible if it cannot be obtained from smaller cardinals by the usual operations of cardinal arithmetic. More precisely, a cardinal κ is strongly inaccessible if it is uncountable, it is not a sum of fewer than κ cardinals smaller than κ, and implies . The term "inaccessible cardinal" is ambiguous. Until about 1950, it meant "weakly inaccessible cardinal", but since then it usually means "strongly inaccessible cardinal".
Epsilon numberIn mathematics, the epsilon numbers are a collection of transfinite numbers whose defining property is that they are fixed points of an exponential map. Consequently, they are not reachable from 0 via a finite series of applications of the chosen exponential map and of "weaker" operations like addition and multiplication. The original epsilon numbers were introduced by Georg Cantor in the context of ordinal arithmetic; they are the ordinal numbers ε that satisfy the equation in which ω is the smallest infinite ordinal.
Wilhelm AckermannWilhelm Friedrich Ackermann (ˈækərmən; ˈakɐˌman; 29 March 1896 – 24 December 1962) was a German mathematician and logician best known for his work in mathematical logic and the Ackermann function, an important example in the theory of computation. Ackermann was born in Herscheid, Germany, and was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Göttingen in 1925 for his thesis Begründung des "tertium non datur" mittels der Hilbertschen Theorie der Widerspruchsfreiheit, which was a consistency proof of arithmetic apparently without Peano induction (although it did use e.
Chaitin's constantIn the computer science subfield of algorithmic information theory, a Chaitin constant (Chaitin omega number) or halting probability is a real number that, informally speaking, represents the probability that a randomly constructed program will halt. These numbers are formed from a construction due to Gregory Chaitin. Although there are infinitely many halting probabilities, one for each method of encoding programs, it is common to use the letter Ω to refer to them as if there were only one.
On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems"Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I" ("On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I") is a paper in mathematical logic by Kurt Gödel. Submitted November 17, 1930, it was originally published in German in the 1931 volume of Monatshefte für Mathematik. Several English translations have appeared in print, and the paper has been included in two collections of classic mathematical logic papers.
Inner modelIn set theory, a branch of mathematical logic, an inner model for a theory T is a substructure of a model M of a set theory that is both a model for T and contains all the ordinals of M. Let be the language of set theory. Let S be a particular set theory, for example the ZFC axioms and let T (possibly the same as S) also be a theory in . If M is a model for S, and N is an -structure such that N is a substructure of M, i.e. the interpretation of in N is N is a model for T the domain of N is a transitive class of M N contains all ordinals of M then we say that N is an inner model of T (in M).
Goodstein's theoremIn mathematical logic, Goodstein's theorem is a statement about the natural numbers, proved by Reuben Goodstein in 1944, which states that every Goodstein sequence eventually terminates at 0. Laurence Kirby and Jeff Paris showed that it is unprovable in Peano arithmetic (but it can be proven in stronger systems, such as second-order arithmetic). This was the third example of a true statement that is unprovable in Peano arithmetic, after the examples provided by Gödel's incompleteness theorem and Gerhard Gentzen's 1943 direct proof of the unprovability of ε0-induction in Peano arithmetic.
Ω-consistent theoryIn mathematical logic, an ω-consistent (or omega-consistent, also called numerically segregative) theory is a theory (collection of sentences) that is not only (syntactically) consistent (that is, does not prove a contradiction), but also avoids proving certain infinite combinations of sentences that are intuitively contradictory. The name is due to Kurt Gödel, who introduced the concept in the course of proving the incompleteness theorem.
Löb's theoremIn mathematical logic, Löb's theorem states that in Peano arithmetic (PA) (or any formal system including PA), for any formula P, if it is provable in PA that "if P is provable in PA then P is true", then P is provable in PA. If Prov(P) means that the formula P is provable, we may express this more formally as If then An immediate corollary (the contrapositive) of Löb's theorem is that, if P is not provable in PA, then "if P is provable in PA, then P is true" is not provable in PA.
Busy beaverIn theoretical computer science, the busy beaver game aims at finding a terminating program of a given size that produces the most output possible. Since an endlessly looping program producing infinite output is easily conceived, such programs are excluded from the game. More precisely, the busy beaver game consists of designing a halting Turing machine with alphabet {0,1} which writes the most 1s on the tape, using only a given set of states.
