February 8, 2019
The purpose of this article is to give a presentation of the method of forcing aimed at someone with a minimal knowledge of set theory and logic. The emphasis will be on how the method can be used to prove theorems in ZFC.
January 15, 1991
We show that it is not provable in ZFC that any two countable elementarily equivalent structures have isomorphic ultrapowers relative to some ultrafilter on omega .
September 25, 1992
Let $M$ be a transitive model of $ZFC$ and let ${\bf B}$ be a $M$-complete Boolean algebra in $M.$ (In general a proper class.) We define a generalized notion of forcing with such Boolean algebras, $^*$forcing. (A $^*$ forcing extension of $M$ is a transitive set of the form $M[{\bf G}]$ where ${\bf G}$ is an $M$-complete ultrafilter on ${\bf B}.$) We prove that 1. If ${\bf G}$ is a $^*$forcing complete ultrafilter on ${\bf B},$ then $M[{\bf G}]\models ZFC.$ 2. Let $H\sub...
October 10, 2016
We give a brief survey on the interplay between forcing axioms and various other non-constructive principles widely used in many fields of abstract mathematics, such as the axiom of choice and Baire's category theorem. First of all we outline how, using basic partial order theory, it is possible to reformulate the axiom of choice, Baire's category theorem, and many large cardinal axioms as specific instances of forcing axioms. We then address forcing axioms with a model-the...
December 15, 2023
We improve the state-of-the-art proof techniques for realizing various spectra of $\mathfrak{a}_{\text{T}}$ in order to realize arbitrarily large spectra. Thus, we make significant progress in addressing a question posed by Brian in his recent work. As a by-product, we obtain many complete subforcings and an algebraic analysis of the automorphisms of the forcing which adds a witness for the spectrum of $\mathfrak{a}_{\text{T}}$ of desired size.
October 27, 2022
We discuss some highlights of our computer-verified proof of the construction, given a countable transitive set-model $M$ of $\mathit{ZFC}$, of generic extensions satisfying $\mathit{ZFC}+\neg\mathit{CH}$ and $\mathit{ZFC}+\mathit{CH}$. Moreover, let $\mathcal{R}$ be the set of instances of the Axiom of Replacement. We isolated a 21-element subset $\Omega\subseteq\mathcal{R}$ and defined $\mathcal{F}:\mathcal{R}\to\mathcal{R}$ such that for every $\Phi\subseteq\mathcal{R}$ an...
October 19, 2015
We define and investigate HC-forcing invariant formulas of set theory, whose interpretations in the hereditarily countable sets are well behaved under forcing extensions. This leads naturally to a notion of cardinality ||Phi|| for sentences Phi of $L_{\omega_1,\omega}$, which counts the number of sentences of $L_{\infty,\omega}$ that, in some forcing extension, become a canonical Scott sentence of a model of Phi. We show this cardinal bounds the complexity of (Mod(Phi), iso),...
February 7, 2015
In this paper we investigate some properties of forcing which can be considered "nice" in the context of singularizing regular cardinals to have an uncountable cofinality. We show that such forcing which changes cofinality of a regular cardinal, cannot be too nice and must cause some "damage" to the structure of cardinals and stationary sets. As a consequence there is no analogue to the Prikry forcing, in terms of "nice" properties, when changing cofinalities to be uncountabl...
April 8, 2022
In this paper, we prove the following: If $n\ge3$, there is a generic extension of $L$ -- the constructible universe -- in which it is true that the Separation principle holds for both effective (lightface) classes $\varSigma^1_n$ and $\varPi^1_n$ for sets of integers. The result was announced long ago by Leo Harrington with a sketch of the proof for $n=3$; its full proof has never been presented. Our methods are based on a countable product of almost-disjoint forcing notions...
May 4, 2006
Various theorems for the preservation of set-theoretic axioms under forcing are proved, regarding both forcing axioms and axioms true in the Levy-Collapse. These show in particular that certain applications of forcing axioms require to add generic countable sequences high up in the set-theoretic hierarchy even before collapsing everything down to $\aleph\_1$. Later we give applications, among them the consistency of ${\rm MM}$ with $\aleph\_\omega$ not being Jonsson which ans...