Reverse mathematics

Reverse mathematics is a program in mathematical logic that seeks to determine which axioms are required to prove theorems of mathematics. The method can briefly be described as “going backwards from the theorems to the axioms” rather than the usual direction (from the axioms to the theorems).

This program was foreshadowed by results in set theory such as the classical theorem that the axiom of choice and Zorn's lemma are equivalent over ZF set theory. The goal of reverse mathematics, however, is to study ordinary theorems of mathematics rather than possible axioms for set theory.

The program was founded by Harvey Friedman in his article "Some systems of second order arithmetic and their use" and abstracts "Systems of second order arithmetic with restricted induction" (I and II). The program was pursued by many researchers in mathematical logic. Stephen Simpson [1999] wrote the primary reference book on the subject.

General principles

The principle of reverse mathematics is the following: one starts with a framework language and a base theory—a core axiom system—that is too weak to prove most of the theorems one might be interested in but still powerful enough to develop the definitions necessary to state the theorem. For example, in order to study the theorem “Every bounded sequence of real numbers has a supremum” it is necessary to use a base system which can speak of real numbers and sequences of real numbers.

The goal is to determine the particular axiom system stronger than the base system that is necessary to prove the theorem. This requires two proofs. The first proof shows that the axiom system S implies the theorem; this is an ordinary mathematical proof along with a justification that it can be carried out in the axiom system at hand. The second proof, known as a reversal, shows that the theorem implies S; this proof is carried out in the base system. The reversal shows that no weaker axiom system than S can prove the theorem, because any second axiom system which implies the theorem must already imply S.

In most results of reverse mathematics, both the axiom system T and the base system are taken to be subsystems of second-order arithmetic; the large body of research in reverse mathematics has established weak subsystems of second-order arithmetic suffice to formalize almost all undergraduate-level mathematics. In second-order arithmetic, all objects must be represented as either natural numbers or sets of natural numbers. For example, in order to prove theorems about real numbers, the real numbers must be represented as Cauchy sequences of rational numbers, each of which can be represented as a set of natural numbers.

The axiom systems most often considered in reverse mathematics are defined using axiom schemes called comprehension schemes. Such a scheme states that any set of natural numbers definable by a formula of a given complexity exists. In this context, the complexity of formulas is measured using the arithmetical hierarchy and analytical hierarchy.

The reason that reverse mathematics is not carried out using set theory as a base system is that the language of set theory is too expressive. Extremely complex sets of natural numbers can be defined by simple formulas in the language of set theory (which can quantify over arbitrary sets). In the context of second-order arithmetic, results such as Post's theorem establish a close link between the complexity of a formula and the (non)computability of the set it defines.

Subsystems of second order arithmetic

Main article: Second-order arithmetic.

Second order arithmetic is a formal theory of the natural numbers and sets of natural numbers. Many mathematical objects, such as countable rings, groups, and fields, as well as points in effective Polish spaces, can be represented as sets of natural numbers, and modulo this representation can be studied in second order arithmetic.

Reverse mathematics makes use of several subsystems of second order arithmetic. A typical reverse mathematics theorem shows that a particular mathematical theorem T is equivalent to a particular subsystem S of second order arithmetic over a weaker subsystem B. This weaker system B is known as the base system for the result; in order for the reverse mathematics result to have meaning, this system must not itself be able to prove the mathematical theorem T.

Simpson [1999] describes five particular subsystems of second order arithmetic, which he calls the Big Five, which occur frequently in reverse mathematics. In order of increasing strength, these systems are named by the acronyms Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0 , Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0 , Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0 , Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ATR}_0 , and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Pi^1_1\mathsf{-CA}_0

they are defined in

detail in the article on second order arithmetic.

The base system

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

is the base system.  The overall goal of reverse mathematics is to take specific theorems of classical mathematics and show that these theorems are either provable in Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0
or equivalent to one of the other systems. 

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

corresponds informally to

"computable mathematics". In particular, any set of natural numbers which can be proven to exist in Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

is computable, and thus any

theorem which implies that noncomputable sets exist is not provable in Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0 . To this extent, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

is a constructive system, although it does not meet the requirements of the program of constructivism because it is a theory in classical logic including the excluded middle. 

Despite its seeming weakness, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

is sufficient to prove a number of classical theorems which, therefore, require only minimal logical strength. (These theorems are, in a sense, below the reach of the reverse mathematics enterprise because they are already provable in the base system.) The classical theorems provable in Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0
include:

• Basic properties of the natural numbers, integers, and rational numbers (for example, that the latter form an ordered field).
• Basic properties of the real numbers (the real numbers are an Archimedean ordered field; any nested sequence of closed intervals whose lengths tend to zero has a single point in its intersection; the real numbers are not countable).
• The Baire category theorem for a complete separable metric space (the separability condition is necessary to even state the theorem in the language of second-order arithmetic).
• The intermediate value theorem on continuous real functions.
• The Banach-Steinhaus theorem for a sequence of continuous linear operators on separable Banach spaces.
• A weak version of Gödel's completeness theorem (for a set of sentences, in a countable language, that is already closed under consequence).
• The existence of an algebraic closure for a countable field (but not its uniqueness).
• The existence and uniqueness of the real closure of a countable ordered field.

The first-order part of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

(in other words, theorems of the system which do not involve any set variables) is the set of theorems of first-order Peano arithmetic with induction limited to Σ01 formulas.  It is provably consistent, as is Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

, in full first-order Peano arithmetic.

Weak König's lemma

The subsystem Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0

consists of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0
plus a weak form of König's lemma, namely the statement that every infinite subtree of the full binary tree (the tree of all finite sequences of 0's and 1's) has an infinite path. This proposition, which is known as weak König's lemma, is easy to state in the language of second-order arithmetic.   Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0
can also be defined as the principle of Σ01 separation (given two Σ01 formulas of a free variable n which are exclusive, there is a class containing all n satisfying the one and no n satisfying the other).

The following remark on terminology is in order. The term “weak König's lemma” refers the sentence which says that any infinite subtree of the binary tree has an infinite path. When this axiom is added to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0 , the resulting subsystem is called Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0 . A similar distinction between particular axioms, on the one hand, and subsystems including the basic axioms and induction, on the other hand, is made for the stronger subsystems described below.

In a sense, weak König's lemma is a form of the axiom of choice (although, as stated, it can be proven in classical Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory without the axiom of choice). It is not constructively valid in some senses of the word constructive.

To see that Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0

is actually stronger than (not provable in) Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

, it is sufficient to exhibit a theorem of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0

which implies that noncomputable sets exist.   This is not difficult; Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0
implies the existence of separating sets for effectively inseparable recursively enumerable sets.

It turns out that Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0
have the same first-order part in the sense that they prove the same first-order sentences.  Weak König's lemma can prove a good number of classical mathematical results which do not follow from Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

, however. These results are not expressible as first order statements but can be expressed as second-order statements.

The following results are equivalent to weak König's lemma and thus to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0

over Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

• The Heine-Borel theorem for the closed unit real interval, in the following sense: every covering by a sequence of open intervals has a finite subcovering.
• The Heine-Borel theorem for complete totally bounded separable metric spaces (where covering is by a sequence of open balls).
• A continuous real function on the closed unit interval (or on any compact separable metric space, as above) is bounded (or: bounded and reaches its bounds).
• A continuous real function on the closed unit interval can be uniformly approximated by polynomials (with rational coefficients).
• A continuous real function on the closed unit interval is uniformly continuous.
• A continuous real function on the closed unit interval is Riemann integrable.
• The Brouwer fixed point theorem (for continuous functions on a finite product of copies of the closed unit interval).
• The separable Hahn-Banach theorem in the form: a bounded linear form on a subspace of a separable Banach space extends to a bounded linear form on the whole space.
• Gödel's completeness theorem (for a countable language).
• Every countable commutative ring has a prime ideal.
• Every countable formally real field is orderable.
• Uniqueness of algebraic closure (for a countable field).

Arithmetical comprehension

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0

is Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0
plus the comprehension scheme for arithmetical formulas. That is, it allows us to form the set of natural numbers satisfying an arbitrary arithmetical formula (one with no bound set variables, although possibly containing set parameters).  Actually, it suffices to add to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0
the comprehension scheme for Σ1 formulas in order to obtain full arithmetical comprehension.

The first-order part of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0

turns out to be exactly first-order Peano arithmetic; Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0
is a conservative extension of first-order Peano arithmetic.  The two systems are provably (in a weak system) equiconsistent.  Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0
can be thought of as a framework of predicative mathematics, although there are predicatively provable theorems that are not provable in Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0

. Seemingly every natural arithmetical result, and many other mathematical theorems, can be proven in this system.

One way of seeing that Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0

is not provable in Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0
is to exhibit a model of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0
that doesn't contain all arithmetical sets. In fact, it is possible to build a model of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WKL}_0
consisting entirely of low sets using the low basis theorem, since low sets relative to low sets are low.

The following assertions are equivalent to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0

over Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

• The sequential completeness of the real numbers (every bounded increasing sequence of real numbers has a limit).
• The Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem.
• Ascoli's theorem: every bounded equicontinuous sequence of real functions on the unit interval has a uniformly convergent subsequence.
• Every countable commutative ring has a maximal ideal.
• Every countable vector space over the rationals (or over any countable field) has a basis.
• Every countable field has a transcendence basis.
• König's lemma (for arbitrary finitely branching trees, as opposed to the weak version described above).
• Various theorems in combinatorics, such as certain forms of Ramsey's theorem.

Arithmetical Transfinite Recursion

The system Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ATR}_0

adds to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0
an axiom which states, informally, that any arithmetical functional (meaning any arithmetical formula with a free number variable n and a free class variable X, seen as the operator taking X to the set of n satisfying the formula) can be iterated transfinitely along any countable well ordering starting with any set.  Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ATR}_0
is equivalent over Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0
to  the principle of Σ11 separation.  Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ATR}_0
is impredicative, and has the proof-theoretic ordinal Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Gamma_0

, the supremum of that of predicative systems.

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ATR}_0

proves the consistency of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0

, and thus by Gödel's theorem it is strictly stronger.

The following assertions are equivalent to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ATR}_0

over Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

• Any two countable well orderings are comparable. That is, they are isomorphic or one is isomorphic to a proper initial segment of the other.
• Ulm's theorem for countable reduced Abelian groups.
• The perfect set theorem, which states that every uncountable closed subset of a complete separable metric space contains a perfect closed set.
• Lusin's separation theorem (essentially Σ¹₁ separation).
• Determinacy for open sets in the Baire space.

Π¹₁ comprehension

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Pi^1_1\mathsf{-CA}_0

is stronger than arithmetical transfinite recursion and is fully impredicative.    It consists of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0
plus the comprehension scheme for Π11 formulas.

In a sense, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Pi^1_1\mathsf{-CA}_0

comprehension is to arithmetical transfinite recursion (Σ11 separation) as Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{ACA}_0
is to weak König's lemma (Σ01 separation).   It is equivalent to several statements of descriptive set theory whose proofs make use of strongly impredicative arguments; this equivalence shows that these impredicative arguments cannot be removed.

The following theorems are equivalent to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Pi^1_1\mathsf{-CA}_0

 over Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

• The Cantor-Bendixson theorem (every closed set of reals is the union of a perfect set and a countable set).
• Every Abelian group is the direct sum of a divisible group and a reduced group.

Additional systems

• Weaker systems than recursive comprehension can be defined. Over such a weak system as elementary function arithmetic (the basic axioms plus Δ⁰₀ induction in the enriched language with an exponential operation) plus Δ⁰₁ comprehension, recursive comprehension as defined earlier (that is, with Σ⁰₁ induction) is equivalent to the statement that a polynomial (over a countable field) has only finitely many roots and to the classification theorem for finitely generated Abelian groups.

• Weak weak König's lemma is the statement that a subtree of the infinite binary tree having no infinite paths has an asymptotically vanishing proportion of the leaves at length n (with a unifoirm estimate as to how many leaves of length n exist). An equivalent formulation is that any subset of Cantor space that has positive measure is nonempty (this is not provable in Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

). Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WWKL}_0

is obtained by adjoining this axiom to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0

. It is equivalent to the statement that if the unit real interval is covered by a sequence of intervals then the sum of their lengths is at least one. The model theory of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{WWKL}_0

is closely connected to the theory of algorithmically random sequences.  In particular, an ω-model of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathsf{RCA}_0
satisfies weak weak König's lemma if and only if for every set X there is a set Y which is 1-random relative to X.

• DNR, or Diagonal Non-Recursive, is the axiom which asserts the existence of diagonally non-recursive sets. That is, DNR states that, for any set A, there exists a total function f such that for all x the xth partial recursive function with oracle A either does not halt or is not equal to f. DNR is strictly weaker than WWKL (see "Comparing DNR and WWKL" by Lempp, Ambos-Spies, Kjos-Hanssen, and Slaman).

• Δ¹₁-comprehension is in certain ways analogous to arithmetical transfinite recursion as recursive comprehension is to weak König's lemma. It has the hyperarithmetical sets as minimal ω-model. Arithmetical transfinite recursion proves Δ¹₁-comprehension but not the other way around.

• Σ¹₁-choice is the statement that if η(n,X) is a Σ¹₁ formula such that for each n there exists an X satisfying η then there is a sequence of sets X_n such that η(n,X_n) holds for each n. Σ¹₁-choice also has the hyperarithmetical sets as minimal ω-model. Arithmetical transfinite recursion proves Σ¹₁-choice but not the other way around.

References

• Harvey Friedman. "Some systems of second order arithmetic and their use". Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians (Vancouver, B.C., 1974), Vol. 1, pp. 235–242. Canad. Math. Congress, Montreal, Que., 1975.
• Harvey Friedman. "Systems of second order arithmetic with restricted induction," I, II (Abstracts). Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.41, pp. 557-- 559, 1976.
• Stephen G. Simpson. Subsystems of Second Order Arithmetic. Perspectives in Mathematical Logic, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1999. ISBN 3-540-64882-8 (first chapter available online [1]).
• Reed Solomon. "Ordered Groups: A Case Study in Reverse Mathematics". The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, v. 5 n. 1 (Mar., 1999), pp. 45-58.

External links

• Harvey Friedman's home page
• Stephen G. Simpson's home pagede:Reverse Mathematik

fr:Mathématiques à rebours it:Matematica inversa tr:Tersine matematik