Set Theory And Foundations of Mathematics: An Introduction to Mathematical Logic

The main aim of this book is to provide a compact self-contained presentation of the forcing technique devised by Cohen to establish the independence of the continuum hypothesis from the axioms of set theory. The book follows the approach to the forcing technique via Boolean valued semantics independently introduced by Vopenka and Scott/Solovay; it develops out of notes I prepared for several master courses on this and related topics and aims to provide an alternative (and more compact) account of this topic with respect to the available classical textbooks.

by Michael Holz (Author), Karsten Steffens (Author), E. Weitz (Author)

This book provides a concise and self-contained introduction to the foundations of mathematics. The first part covers the fundamental notions of mathematical logic, including logical axioms, formal proofs and the basics of model theory. Building on this, in the second and third part of the book the authors present detailed proofs of Gödel’s classical completeness and incompleteness theorems. In particular, the book includes a full proof of Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem which states that it is impossible to prove the consistency of arithmetic within its axioms. The final part is dedicated to an introduction into modern axiomatic set theory based on the Zermelo’s axioms, containing a presentation of Gödel’s constructible universe of sets. A recurring theme in the whole book consists of standard and non-standard models of several theories, such as Peano arithmetic, Presburger arithmetic and the real numbers.

This book provides a concise and self-contained introduction to the foundations of mathematics. The first part covers the fundamental notions of mathematical logic, including logical axioms, formal proofs and the basics of model theory. Building on this, in the second and third part of the book the authors present detailed proofs of Gödel’s classical completeness and incompleteness theorems.