English

Every countable model of set theory embeds into its own constructible universe

Logic 2014-02-14 v3

Abstract

The main theorem of this article is that every countable model of set theory M, including every well-founded model, is isomorphic to a submodel of its own constructible universe. In other words, there is an embedding j:MLMj:M\to L^M that is elementary for quantifier-free assertions. The proof uses universal digraph combinatorics, including an acyclic version of the countable random digraph, which I call the countable random Q-graded digraph, and higher analogues arising as uncountable Fraisse limits, leading to the hypnagogic digraph, a set-homogeneous, class-universal, surreal-numbers-graded acyclic class digraph, closely connected with the surreal numbers. The proof shows that LML^M contains a submodel that is a universal acyclic digraph of rank OrdMOrd^M. The method of proof also establishes that the countable models of set theory are linearly pre-ordered by embeddability: for any two countable models of set theory, one of them is isomorphic to a submodel of the other. Indeed, they are pre-well-ordered by embedability in order-type exactly ω1+1\omega_1+1. Specifically, the countable well-founded models are ordered by embeddability in accordance with the heights of their ordinals; every shorter model embeds into every taller model; every model of set theory MM is universal for all countable well-founded binary relations of rank at most OrdMOrd^M; and every ill-founded model of set theory is universal for all countable acyclic binary relations. Finally, strengthening a classical theorem of Ressayre, the same proof method shows that if MM is any nonstandard model of PA, then every countable model of set theory---in particular, every model of ZFC---is isomorphic to a submodel of the hereditarily finite sets HFMHF^M of MM. Indeed, HFMHF^M is universal for all countable acyclic binary relations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1207.0963,
  title  = {Every countable model of set theory embeds into its own constructible universe},
  author = {Joel David Hamkins},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.0963},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

25 pages, 2 figures. Questions and commentary can be made at http://jdh.hamkins.org/every-model-embeds-into-own-constructible-universe. (v2 adds a reference and makes minor corrections) (v3 includes further changes, and removes the previous theorem 15, which was incorrect.)