Primitive recursive ordinal functions with added constants

1977 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-82
Author(s):  
Stanley H. Stahl

One of the basic differences between the primitive recursive functions on the natural numbers and the primitive recursive ordinal functions (PR) is the nearly complete absence of constant functions in PR. Since ω is closed under all of the functions in PR, if α is any infinite ordinal, then λξ·α is not in PR. It is easily seen, however, that if one adds to the initial functions of PR the constant function λξ·ω, then all of the ordinals up to ω#, the next largest PR-closed ordinal, have their constant functions in this class. Since, however, such collections of functions are always countable, it is also the case that if one adds to the initial functions of PR the function λξ. α for uncountable α, then there are ordinals β < α whose constant functions are not in this collection. Because of this, the following objects are of interest:Definition. For all α,(i)PR(α) is the collection of functions obtained by adding to the initial primitive recursive ordinal functions, the function λξ· α;(ii) PRsp(α), the primitive recursive spectrum of α, is the set {β < α ∣ λξβ ∈ PR(α);(iii) Λ (α)= μρ(ρ∉ PRsp(α)).

1976 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 1205-1209
Author(s):  
Stanley H. Stahl

The class of primitive recursive ordinal functions (PR) has been studied recently by numerous recursion theorists and set theorists (see, for example, Platek [3] and Jensen-Karp [2]). These investigations have been part of an inquiry concerning a larger class of functions; in Platek's case, the class of ordinal recursive functions and in the case of Jensen and Karp, the class of primitive recursive set functions. In [4] I began to study PR in depth and this paper is a report on an attractive analogy between PR and its progenitor, the class of primitive recursive functions on the natural numbers (Prim. Rec).


2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (103) ◽  
pp. 43-68
Author(s):  
Matthias Schirn ◽  
Karl-Georg Niebergall

 In his paper "Finitism" (1981), W.W. Tait maintains that the chief difficulty for everyone who wishes to understand Hilbert's conception of finitist mathematics is this: to specify the sense of the provability of general statements about the natural numbers without presupposing infinite totalities. Tait further argues that all finitist reasoning is essentially primitive recursive. In this paper, we attempt to show that his thesis "The finitist functions are precisely the primitive recursive functions" is disputable and that another, likewise defended by him, is untenable. The second thesis is that the finitist theorems are precisely the universal closures of the equations that can be proved in PRA.


1946 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil L. Post

In his excellent review of four notes of Skolem on recursive functions of natural numbers Bernays states: “The question whether every relation y = f(x1,…, xn) with a recursive function ƒ is primitive recursive remains undecided.” Actually, the question is easily answered in the negative by a form of the familiar diagonal argument.We start with the ternary recursive relation R, referred to in the review, such that R(x, y, 0), R(x, y, 1), … is an enumeration of all binary primitive recursive relations.


1959 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-148
Author(s):  
Alan Rose

It has been shown that every general recursive function is definable by application of the five schemata for primitive recursive functions together with the schemasubject to the condition that, for each n–tuple of natural numbers x1,…, xn there exists a natural number xn+1 such that


1965 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaisi Takeuti

In this paper, by a function of ordinals we understand a function which is defined for all ordinals and each of whose value is an ordinal. In [7] (also cf. [8] or [9]) we defined recursive functions and predicates of ordinals, following Kleene's definition on natural numbers. A predicate will be called arithmetical, if it is obtained from a recursive predicate by prefixing a sequence of alternating quantifiers. A function will be called arithmetical, if its representing predicate is arithmetical.The cardinals are identified with those ordinals a which have larger power than all smaller ordinals than a. For any given ordinal a, we denote by the cardinal of a and by 2a the cardinal which is of the same power as the power set of a. Let χ be the function such that χ(a) is the least cardinal which is greater than a.Now there are functions of ordinals such that they are easily defined in set theory, but it seems impossible to define them as arithmetical ones; χ is such a function. If we define χ in making use of only the language on ordinals, it seems necessary to use the notion of all the functions from ordinals, e.g., as in [6].


1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franco Montagna ◽  
Andrea Sorbi

When dealing with axiomatic theories from a recursion-theoretic point of view, the notion of r.e. preordering naturally arises. We agree that an r.e. preorder is a pair = 〈P, ≤P〉 such that P is an r.e. subset of the set of natural numbers (denoted by ω), ≤P is a preordering on P and the set {〈;x, y〉: x ≤Py} is r.e.. Indeed, if is an axiomatic theory, the provable implication of yields a preordering on the class of (Gödel numbers of) formulas of .Of course, if ≤P is a preordering on P, then it yields an equivalence relation ~P on P, by simply letting x ~Py iff x ≤Py and y ≤Px. Hence, in the case of P = ω, any preordering yields an equivalence relation on ω and consequently a numeration in the sense of [4]. It is also clear that any equivalence relation on ω (hence any numeration) can be regarded as a preordering on ω. In view of this connection, we sometimes apply to the theory of preorders some of the concepts from the theory of numerations (see also Eršov [6]).Our main concern will be in applications of these concepts to logic, in particular as regards sufficiently strong axiomatic theories (essentially the ones in which recursive functions are representable). From this point of view it seems to be of some interest to study some remarkable prelattices and Boolean prealgebras which arise from such theories. It turns out that these structures enjoy some rather surprising lattice-theoretic and universal recursion-theoretic properties.After making our main definitions in §1, we examine universal recursion-theoretic properties of some r.e. prelattices in §2.


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