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Silver machine

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In set theory, Silver machines are devices used for bypassing the use of fine structure in proofs of statements holding in L. They were invented by set theorist Jack Silver as a means of proving global square holds in the constructible universe.

Contents

Preliminaries

An ordinal α is *definable from a class of ordinals X if and only if there is a formula ϕ ( μ 0 , μ 1 , , μ n ) and β 1 , , β n , γ X such that α is the unique ordinal for which L γ ϕ ( α , β 1 , , β n ) where for all α we define α to be the name for α within L γ .

A structure X , < , ( h i ) i < ω is eligible if and only if:

  1. X O n .
  2. < is the ordering on On restricted to X.
  3. i , h i is a partial function from X k ( i ) to X, for some integer k(i).

If N = X , < , ( h i ) i < ω is an eligible structure then N λ is defined to be as before but with all occurrences of X replaced with X λ .

Let N 1 , N 2 be two eligible structures which have the same function k. Then we say N 1 N 2 if i ω and x 1 , , x k ( i ) X 1 we have:

h i 1 ( x 1 , , x k ( i ) ) h i 2 ( x 1 , , x k ( i ) )

Silver machine

A Silver machine is an eligible structure of the form M = O n , < , ( h i ) i < ω which satisfies the following conditions:

Condensation principle. If N M λ then there is an α such that N M α .

Finiteness principle. For each λ there is a finite set H λ such that for any set A λ + 1 we have

M λ + 1 [ A ] M λ [ ( A λ ) H ] { λ }

Skolem property. If α is *definable from the set X O n , then α M [ X ] ; moreover there is an ordinal λ < [ s u p ( X ) α ] + , uniformly Σ 1 definable from X { α } , such that α M λ [ X ] .

References

Silver machine Wikipedia