MTH726A: Combinatorial set theory

1 Prerequisites
The axioms of ZFC, Well-ordering theorem, Ordinals, Transfinite induction and recursion, Posets and
Zorn’s lemma, Cardinality and cardinals, Ultrafilters. Some notes on these topics can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hRjlL9optZ_g2IBUYJwbgpQkUGa23RTv

2 Syllabus
Review of cardinal arithmetic, Cardinal exponentiation, Cofinality, Non-stationary ideal and club filter,
Diagonal intersection and Fodor’s lemma, Banach measure problem, Ulam’s dichotomy and real valued
measurable cardinals, Suslin’s problem, Diamond principle and construction of Suslin line, Martin’s axiom
and its applications to measure and category on the real line, Walks on ordinals and their characteristics,
Partition relations, Some open problems.

For an excellent introduction to infinite combinatorics, see [5]. One of the goals of this class is
to apply techniques from infinite combinatorics to problems in other branches of mathematics like
measure theory and topology. To give an idea of the sort of applications we have in mind, let us
mention the following problems.
Question 2.1 (Banach). Is there a set X and a function m : P(X) → [0, 1] such that the following
hold.

(1) m(X) = 1 and for every y ∈ X, m({y}) = 0.

(2) For every sequence hAn : n ≥ 1i of pairwise disjoint subsets of X,

 
[ X
m An  = m(An )
n≥1 n≥1

Question 2.2 (Suslin). Suppose (L, <) is an infinite linear ordering satisfying (a)-(c) below. Must
(L, <) be order isomorphic to the real line?

(a) For every a < b in L, there exist x, y, z ∈ L such that x < a < y < b < z.

(b) Every family of pairwise disjoint open intervals in (L, <) is countable.

(c) Whenever X ⊆ L is nonempty and bounded in (L, <), X has a supremum and an infimum
in (L, <).

Question 2.3. Is there a function f : [ω1 ]2 → ω1 such that for every uncountable A ⊆ ω1 , the
range of f  [A]2 is ω1 ? Here [X]2 denotes the set of all two element subsets of X.

1
 The first two problems turned out to be undecidable in ZFC and the proof of these facts uses
“forcing” which we won’t be covering in this class. However, set-theorists have come up with a
plethora of combinatorial principles/semi-axioms which have been extensively applied to decide
problems like above. For example, we’ll show that the diamond principle implies that the answer
to Suslin’s problem is no while Martin’s axiom implies that the answer to Suslin’s problem is
yes. Since each one of these principles is consistent with ZFC, it follows that Suslin’s problem is
undecidable in ZFC. The third problem was solved positively by Todorcevic [6] in the late 1980s
using the method of “walks on ordinals” which has found several other applications since then.
This will be covered in the latter half of this class. For more information on the other topics see
the references below.

References
[1] K. Ciesielski, Set theory for the working mathematician, Cambridge university press 2012

[2] A. Hajnal and P. Hamburger, Set Theory, Cambridge university press 1999

[3] P. Komjath and V. Totik, Problems and theorems in classical set theory, Springer 2006

[4] K. Kunen, Set Theory: An introduction to independence proofs, Elsevier 1980

[5] K. Kunen, Set Theory: Combinatorics, in the Handbook of mathematical logic (eds J. Barwise
& J. Keisler), Studies in logic and the foundations of mathematics 90, Elsevier 1977

[6] S. Todorcevic, Partitioning pairs of countable ordinals, Acta Mathematica, Vol. 159 (1987),
261-294

[7] S. Todorcevic, Walks on ordinals and their characteristics, Progress in mathematics Vol. 263,
Birkhauser 2007