October 30
Benedikt Löwe,
University of Hamburg
Analysis in higher analogues of the reals
The real numbers are up to isomorphism the only completely ordered field with a countable dense subset. We consider non-Archimedean ordered fields whose smallest dense subset has cardinality kappa and investigate whether anything resembling ordinary analysis works on these fields.
In particular, we look at generalisations of the intermediate value theorem and the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, and realise that there is some mathematical tension between these theorems: the intermediate value theorem requires some saturation whereas Bolzano-Weierstrass fails if the field is saturated. We consider weakenings of Bolzano-Weierstrass compatible with saturation and realise that these are equivalent to the weak compactness of kappa.
This is joint work with Merlin Carl, Lorenzo Galeotti, and Aymane Hanafi.