Criteria of constructibility for real numbers

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to prove two theorems and a conjecture (Conjecture II) announced in section 15 an earlier paper of the author's (cited as “CT”), and to compare them briefly with related results of Specker. Familiarity with both papers is assumed; the terminology of the former is used throughout. On two points however clarification of the usage of CT is in order, and to this chore we must first proceed.A half-section is the lower half of a Dedekind cut; if the cut is rational, the half section is to include the rational corresponding to the real defined by the cut. A whole-section is the relation which holds between any member of the lower and any member of the upper half of some Dedekind cut. If the cut is rational the corresponding rational is to be a member of both halves.A real number α is said to be approximate in K to any required number of decimal places if it is possible to define the predicates ‘x < α’, ‘x ≤ α’, ‘x > α’, and ‘x ≥ α’ (x rational) in K. In view of section 7 of CT this will mean that every true inequation between α and a terminating decimal will be provable in K.