João Rasga

This textbook provides a self-contained introduction to decidability of first-order theories and their combination. The technical material is presented in a systematic and universal way and illustrated with plenty of examples and a range of proposed exercises. After an overview of basic first-order logic concepts, the authors discuss some model-theoretic notions like embeddings, diagrams, and elementary substructures. The text then goes on to explore an applicable way to deduce logical consequences from a given theory and presents sufficient conditions for a theory to be decidable. The chapters that follow focus on quantifier elimination, decidability of the combination of first-order theories and the basics of computability theory. The inclusion of a chapter on Gentzen calculus, cut elimination, and Craig interpolation, as well as a chapter on combination of theories and preservation of decidability, help to set this volume apart from similar books in the field. Decidability of Logical Theories and their Combination is ideal for graduate students of Mathematics and is equally suitable for Computer Science, Philosophy and Physics students who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the subject. The book is also directed to researchers that intend to get acquainted with first-order theories and their combination.

This textbook provides a self-contained introduction to decidability of first-order theories and their combination. The technical material is presented in a systematic and universal way and illustrated with plenty of examples and a range of proposed exercises. After an overview of basic first-order logic concepts, the authors discuss some model-theoretic notions like embeddings, diagrams, and elementary substructures. The text then goes on to explore an applicable way to deduce logical consequences from a given theory and presents sufficient conditions for a theory to be decidable. The chapters that follow focus on quantifier elimination, decidability of the combination of first-order theories and the basics of computability theory. The inclusion of a chapter on Gentzen calculus, cut elimination, and Craig interpolation, as well as a chapter on combination of theories and preservation of decidability, help to set this volume apart from similar books in the field. Decidability of Logical Theories and their Combination is ideal for graduate students of Mathematics and is equally suitable for Computer Science, Philosophy and Physics students who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the subject. The book is also directed to researchers that intend to get acquainted with first-order theories and their combination.

The book provides a self-contained introduction to computability theory for advanced undergraduate or early graduate students of mathematics and computer science. The technical material is illustrated with plenty of examples, problems with fully worked solutions as well as a range of proposed exercises. Part I is centered around fundamental computability notions and results, starting with the pillar concepts of computational model (an abstract high-level programming language), computable function, decidable and listable set, proper universal function, decision problem and the reduction technique for transferring decidability and listability properties. The essential results namely Rice's Theorem, Rice-Shapiro's Theorem, Rice-Shapiro-McNaughton-Myhill's Theorem as well as Rogers' Theorem and the Recursion Theorem are presented and illustrated. Many-to-one reducibility and many-to-one degrees are investigated. A short introduction to computation with oracles is also included. Computable as well as non-computable operators are introduced as well as monotonic and finitary operators. The relationship between them is discussed, in particular via Myhill-Shepherdson's Theorem. Kleene's Least Fixed Point Theorem is also presented. Finally, Part I terminates with a briefi ng on the Turing computational model, Turing reducibility and Turing degrees. Part II of the book concentrates on applications of computability in several areas namely in logic (undecidability of arithmetic, satisfiability in propositional logic, decidability in modal logic), Euclidean geometry, graphs and Kolmogorov complexity. Nevertheless no previous knowledge of these subjects is required. The essential details for understanding the applications are provided.