Sunday, 24 March 2013

elementary set theory - What is the Cardinality of the Nameable Numbers?



Having just finished "Meta Math!" (Chaitin), I came across an interesting observation on infinite sets that I hadn't seen before. If I'm correct (and please let me know if I'm not):



1] There are infinite sets that we are used to, like the whole numbers, integers, and rational numbers that, since they can be put in one-to-one correspondence with each other, have the same 'size' or cardinality, 0



2] The real numbers can not be put in correspondence with these sets. They are in fact a power set of the smaller sets, |R|=20.




3] If the continuum hypothesis holds we get that |R|=1, ie. there is no intermediate infinity in between the cardinality of the set of the whole numbers versus that of the reals.



Now comes the part where I get a bit fuzzy. There are 'computable reals', numbers like π that can be encoded in a finite length program. These computable reals must be of size 0 as well, since you can encode all of them with a Turing machince and match each code to an integer.



There are uncomputable reals, such as Chaitin's Ω which, although we can't write down all the digits, we can at least specify what the number means. Chaitin calls these numbers 'nameable', let's call them A. He asserts that the probability that you'll pick one at random is zero. This implies (I think) that |A|=0, but it also implies that there is a mapping of the integers to the uncomputable, yet namable numbers!



What is the cardinality of numbers like Ω?


Answer



I forgot what this term was called, but I remember now: the numbers you're looking for are called definable numbers. Instead of Turing machines, we use first-order formulas, of which there are countably many since the collection of all finite strings of symbols from a finite alphabet is countable (exercise).



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