This book lays the foundations for an exciting new area of research in descriptive set theory. It develops a robust connection between two active topics: forcing and analytic equivalence relations. This in turn allows the authors to develop a generalization of classical Ramsey theory. Given an analytic equivalence relation on a Polish space, can one find a large subset of the space on which it has a simple form? The book provides many positive and negative general answers to this question. The proofs feature proper forcing and Gandy–Harrington forcing, as well as partition arguments. The results include strong canonization theorems for many classes of equivalence relations and sigma-ideals, as well as ergodicity results in cases where canonization theorems are impossible to achieve. Ideal for graduate students and researchers in set theory, the book provides a useful springboard for further research.
We apply Benacerraf's distinction between mathematical ontology and mathematical practice (or the structures mathematicians use in practice) to examine contrasting interpretations of infinitesimal mathematics of the 17th and 18th century, in the work of Bos, Ferraro, Laugwitz, and others. We detect Weierstrass's ghost behind some of the received historiography on Euler's infinitesimal mathematics, as when Ferraro proposes to understand Euler in terms of a Weierstrassian notion of limit and Fraser declares classical analysis to be a "primary point of reference for understanding the eighteenth-century theories". Meanwhile, scholars like Bos and Laugwitz seek to explore Eulerian methodology, practice, and procedures in a way more faithful to Euler's own.Euler's use of infinite integers and the associated infinite products is analyzed in the context of his infinite product decomposition for the sine function. Euler's principle of cancellation is compared to the Leibnizian transcendental law of homogeneity. The Leibnizian law of continuity similarly finds echoes in Euler.We argue that Ferraro's assumption that Euler worked with a classical notion of quantity is symptomatic of a post-Weierstrassian placement of Euler in the Archimedean track for the development of analysis, as well as a blurring of the distinction between the dual tracks noted by Bos. Interpreting Euler in an Archimedean conceptual framework obscures important aspects of Euler's work. Such a framework is profitably replaced by a syntactically more versatile modern infinitesimal framework that provides better proxies for his inferential moves.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.