Stone Space of Cylindric Algebras and Topological Model Spaces

Abstract

The Stone representation theorem was a milestone for the understanding of Boolean algebras. From Stone’s theorem, every Boolean algebra is representable as a field of sets with a topological structure. By means of this, the structural elements of any Boolean algebra, as well as the relations between them, are represented geometrically and can be clearly visualized. It is no different for cylindric algebras: Suppose that ${\frak A}$ is a cylindric algebra and ${\cal S}$ is the Stone space of its Boolean part. (Among the elements of the Boolean part are the diagonal elements.) It is known that with nothing more than a family of equivalence relations on ${\cal S}$ to represent quantifiers, ${\cal S}$ represents the full cylindric structure just as the Stone space alone represents the Boolean structure. ${\cal S}$ with this structure is called a cylindric space.Many assertions about cylindric algebras can be stated in terms of elementary topological properties of ${\cal S}$. Moreover, points of ${\cal S}$ may be construed as models, and on that construal ${\cal S}$ is called a model space. Certain relations between points on this space turn out to be morphisms between models, and the space of models with these relations hints at the possibility of an “abstract” model theory. With these ideas, a point-set version of model theory is proposed, in the spirit of pointless topology or category theory, in which the central insight is to treat the semantic objects (models) homologously with the corresponding syntactic objects so they reside together in the same space.It is shown that there is a new, purely algebraic way of introducing constants in cylindric algebras, leading to a simplified proof of the representation theorem for locally finite cylindric algebras. Simple rich algebras emerge as homomorphic images of cylindric algebras. The topological version of this theorem is especially interesting: The Stone space of every locally finite cylindric algebra ${\frak A}$ can be partitioned into subspaces which are the Stone spaces of all the simple rich homomorphic images of ${\frak A}$. Each of these images completely determines a model of ${\frak A}$, and all denumerable models of ${\frak A}$ appear in this representation.The Stone space ${\cal S}$ of every cylindric algebra can likewise be partitioned into closed sets which are duals of all the types in ${\frak A}$. This fact yields new insights into miscellaneous results in the model theory of saturated models.