Sam Sanders
The uncountability of the reals was first established by Cantor in what was later heralded as the first paper on set theory. Since the latter constitutes the official foundations of mathematics, the logical study of the uncountability of…
The smooth development of large parts of mathematics hinges on the idea that some sets are `small' or `negligible' and can therefore be ignored for a given purpose. The perhaps most famous smallness notion, namely `measure zero', originated…
The topic of this paper is the subtle interplay between countability and representations. In particular, we establish that the definition of countability of a certain set $X$ crucially hinges on the associated equivalence relation $=_{X}$.…
Examples of discontinuous functions already appear in the work of Euler, Abel, Dirichlet, Fourier, and Bolzano. A ground-breaking discovery due to Baire was that many discontinuous functions are well-behaved in that they are the pointwise…
This paper presents a reverse mathematical analysis of several forms of the sorites paradox. We first illustrate how traditional formulations are reliant on H\"older's Representation Theorem for ordered Archimedean groups. While this is…
Abraham Robinson's philosophical stance has been the subject of several recent studies. Erhardt following Gaifman claims that Robinson was a finitist, and that there is a tension between his philosophical position and his actual…
A central topic in mathematical logic is the classification of theorems from mathematics in hierarchies according to their logical strength. Ideally, the place of a theorem in a hierarchy does not depend on the representation (aka coding)…
Continuous functions on the unit interval are relatively tame from the logical and computational point of view. A similar behaviour is exhibited by continuous functions on compact metric spaces equipped with a countable dense subset. It is…
Continuity is one of the most central notions in mathematics, physics, and computer science. An interesting associated topic is decompositions of continuity, where continuity is shown to be equivalent to the combination of two or more weak…
Reverse Mathematics (RM for short) is a program in the foundations of mathematics where the aim is to find the minimal axioms needed to prove a given theorem of ordinary mathematics. Generally, the minimal axioms are equivalent to the…
Going back to Kreisel in the Sixties, hyperarithmetical analysis is a cluster of logical systems just beyond arithmetical comprehension. Only recently natural examples of theorems from the mathematical mainstream were identified that fit…
Open sets are central to mathematics, especially analysis and topology, in ways few notions are. In most, if not all, computational approaches to mathematics, open sets are only studied indirectly via their 'codes' or 'representations'. In…
We investigate the computational properties of basic mathematical notions pertaining to $\mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$-functions and subsets of $\mathbb{R}$, like finiteness, countability, (absolute) continuity, bounded variation,…
The program Reverse Mathematics in the foundations of mathematics seeks to identify the minimal axioms required to prove theorems of ordinary mathematics. One always assumes the base theory, a logical system embodying computable…
Many theorems of mathematics have the form that for a certain problem, e.g. a differential equation or polynomial (in)equality, there exists a solution. The sequential version then states that for a sequence of problems, there is a sequence…
Kleene's computability theory based on the S1-S9 computation schemes constitutes a model for computing with objects of any finite type and extends Turing's 'machine model' which formalises computing with real numbers. A fundamental…
This is a survey of several approaches to the framework for working with infinitesimals and infinite numbers, originally developed by Abraham Robinson in the 1960s, and their constructive engagement with the Cantor-Dedekind postulate and…
The aim of Reverse Mathematics(RM for short)is to find the minimal axioms needed to prove a given theorem of ordinary mathematics. These minimal axioms are almost always equivalent to the theorem, working over the base theory of RM, a weak…
The uncountability of $\mathbb{R}$ is one of its most basic properties, known far outside of mathematics. Cantor's 1874 proof of the uncountability of $\mathbb{R}$ even appears in the very first paper on set theory, i.e. a historical…
Leibniz scholarship is currently an area of lively debate. We respond to some recent criticisms by Archibald et al.