Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
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Claim. The paper's theorem, as its zbMATH review states it: if Jensen's principle holds, then for every : there is a graph on with no infinite path and no independent set of order type . For a limit ordinal with an independent set of type would contain one of type , so under no such has the property asked by Problem 601; in particular , the case Erdős offered a prize for, fails. Erdős reports the result under Problem 10 of Erdős 1987 (printed p. 226) as recent work of Larson and Baumgartner, then to appear: it is consistent that every fails to have an independent set of type or an infinite path.
Hypothesis. Jensen's , which holds in and implies the continuum hypothesis, so the model has . The claim decides no instance in ZFC. Set against Larson's theorem under Martin's axiom in the same issue, which gives the property to every limit , it makes the case independent of ZFC; the problem page records the argument.
Source. James E. Baumgartner and Jean A. Larson, A diamond example of an ordinal graph with no infinite paths, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 47 (1990), no. 1, 1–10, doi:10.1016/0168-0072(90)90013-R; Zbl 0703.03028. The issue is dated April 1990 and carries no day, so this page is dated the first of that month. The paper is paywalled and not held; its statement is taken from the zbMATH review. Nothing on this page is independently reviewed by this project.
Acceptance. Refereed: a journal paper in the Annals of Pure and Applied
Logic. The site's commentary does not mention the paper and labels the
problem OPEN, so reviewed is not listed.