Fusible numbers and Peano Arithmetic
Abstract
Inspired by a mathematical riddle involving fuses, we define the "fusible numbers" as follows: is fusible, and whenever are fusible with , the number is also fusible. We prove that the set of fusible numbers, ordered by the usual order on , is well-ordered, with order type . Furthermore, we prove that the density of the fusible numbers along the real line grows at an incredibly fast rate: Letting be the largest gap between consecutive fusible numbers in the interval , we have for some constant , where denotes the fast-growing hierarchy. Finally, we derive some true statements that can be formulated but not proven in Peano Arithmetic, of a different flavor than previously known such statements: PA cannot prove the true statement "For every natural number there exists a smallest fusible number larger than ." Also, consider the algorithm ": if return , else return ." Then terminates on real inputs, although PA cannot prove the statement " terminates on all natural inputs."
Cite
@article{arxiv.2003.14342,
title = {Fusible numbers and Peano Arithmetic},
author = {Jeff Erickson and Gabriel Nivasch and Junyan Xu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.14342},
year = {2023}
}