Contents

Introduction

Example. (,+) is not the same as (,+,).

(,+) is decidable (there exists an algorithm to decide whether a given sentence is true or false in the model).

However, (,+,) is not decidable (Gödel’s completeness theorem).

Example.

  • (1) (,+,0,1)
  • (2) (V,+,fr) (where V is an -vector space, and fr is the map r:vrv for any r).

These structures are both strongly minimal.

Definition (Strongly minimal). A theory is strongly minimal if all formulas in one variable are either finite or co-finite.

For the example: formulas in one variable are polynomial equations or inequations, so solution set is always either finite or cofinite (recall Fundamental Theorem of Algebra).

For the vector space example: the formulas in one variable are of the form ax=b or axb.

Cheats:

Interestingly: strongly minimal structures all carry notion of dimensions. For example:

If interested in further reading: see