In
mathematics, the Halpern–Läuchli theorem is a partition result about finite products of infinite
trees
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
. Its original purpose was to give a model for
set theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concer ...
in which the
Boolean prime ideal theorem
In mathematics, the Boolean prime ideal theorem states that ideals in a Boolean algebra can be extended to prime ideals. A variation of this statement for filters on sets is known as the ultrafilter lemma. Other theorems are obtained by consid ...
is true but the
axiom of choice
In mathematics, the axiom of choice, or AC, is an axiom of set theory equivalent to the statement that ''a Cartesian product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty''. Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection ...
is false. It is often called the Halpern–Läuchli theorem, but the proper attribution for the theorem as it is formulated below is to Halpern–Läuchli–Laver–Pincus or HLLP (named after James D. Halpern, Hans Läuchli,
Richard Laver
Richard Joseph Laver (October 20, 1942 – September 19, 2012) was an American mathematician, working in set theory.
Biography
Laver received his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, under the supervision of Ralph McKenzie, wi ...
, and David Pincus), following .
Let ''d'',''r'' < ω,
be a sequence of finitely splitting trees of height ω. Let
:
then there exists a sequence of subtrees
strongly embedded in
such that
:
Alternatively, let
:
and
:
.
The HLLP theorem says that not only is the collection
partition regular
In combinatorics, a branch of mathematics, partition regularity is one notion of largeness for a collection of sets.
Given a set X, a collection of subsets \mathbb \subset \mathcal(X) is called ''partition regular'' if every set ''A'' in the co ...
for each ''d'' < ''ω'', but that the homogeneous subtree guaranteed by the theorem is strongly embedded in
:
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Halpern-Lauchli theorem
Ramsey theory
Theorems in the foundations of mathematics
Trees (set theory)