The twenty-six papers in this volume reflect the wide and still expanding range of Anil Nerode's work. A conference on Logical Methods was held in honor of Nerode's sixtieth birthday (4 June 1992) at the Mathematical Sciences Institute, Cornell University, 1-3 June 1992. Some of the conference papers are here, but others are from students, co-workers and other colleagues. The intention of the conference was to look forward, and to see the directions currently being pursued, in the development of work by, or with, Nerode. Here is a brief summary of the contents of this book. We give a retrospective view of Nerode's work. A number of specific areas are readily discerned: recursive equivalence types, recursive algebra and model theory, the theory of Turing degrees and r.e. sets, polynomial-time computability and computer science. Nerode began with automata theory and has also taken a keen interest in the history of mathematics. All these areas are represented. The one area missing is Nerode's applied mathematical work relating to the environment. Kozen's paper builds on Nerode's early work on automata. Recursive equivalence types are covered by Dekker and Barback, the latter using directly a fundamental metatheorem of Nerode. Recursive algebra is treated by Ge & Richards (group representations). Recursive model theory is the subject of papers by Hird, Moses, and Khoussainov & Dadajanov, while a combinatorial problem in recursive model theory is discussed in Cherlin & Martin's paper. Cenzer presents a paper on recursive dynamics.
The theory of finite automata on finite stings, infinite strings, and trees has had a dis tinguished history. First, automata were introduced to represent idealized switching circuits augmented by unit delays. This was the period of Shannon, McCullouch and Pitts, and Howard Aiken, ending about 1950. Then in the 1950s there was the work of Kleene on representable events, of Myhill and Nerode on finite coset congruence relations on strings, of Rabin and Scott on power set automata. In the 1960s, there was the work of Btichi on automata on infinite strings and the second order theory of one successor, then Rabin's 1968 result on automata on infinite trees and the second order theory of two successors. The latter was a mystery until the introduction of forgetful determinacy games by Gurevich and Harrington in 1982. Each of these developments has successful and prospective applications in computer science. They should all be part of every computer scientist's toolbox. Suppose that we take a computer scientist's point of view. One can think of finite automata as the mathematical representation of programs that run us ing fixed finite resources. Then Btichi's SIS can be thought of as a theory of programs which run forever (like operating systems or banking systems) and are deterministic. Finally, Rabin's S2S is a theory of programs which run forever and are nondeterministic. Indeed many questions of verification can be decided in the decidable theories of these automata.
nullane de tantis gregibus tibi digna videtur? rara avis in terra nigroque simillima cygno. Juvenal Sat. VI 161, 165. 1966-JNC visits AN at CornelI. An idea emerges. 1968-JNC is at V. c. L. A. for the Logic Year. The Los Angeles ma- script appears. 1970-AN visits JNC at Monash. 1971-The Australian manuscript appears. 1972-JNC visits AN at Cornell. Here is the result. We gratefully acknowledge support from Cornell Vniversity, Vni versity of California at Los Angeles, Monash Vniversity and National Science Foundation Grants GP 14363, 22719 and 28169. We are deeply indebted to the many people who have helped uso Amongst the mathe maticians, we are particularly grateful to J. C. E. Dekker, John Myhill, Erik Ellentuck, Peter AczeI, Chris Ash, Charlotte ehell, Ed Eisenberg, Dave Gillam, Bill Gross, Alan Hamilton, Louise Hay, Georg Kreisel, Phil Lavori, Ray Liggett, Al Manaster, Michael D. Morley, Joe Rosen stein, Graham Sainsbury, Bob Soare and Michael Venning. Last, but by no means least, we thank Anne-Marie Vandenberg, Esther Monroe, Arletta Havlik, Dolores Pendell, and Cathy Stevens and the girls of the Mathematics Department of VCLA in 1968 for hours and hours of excellent typing. Thanksgiving November 1972 J. N. Crossley Ithaca, New Y ork Anil Nerode Contents O. Introduction . . . . . . . 1 Part 1. Categories and Functors 3 1. Categories . . . . . . . . 3 2. Morphism Combinatorial Functors 3 3. Combinatorial Functors . . . . . 18 Part H. Model Theory . . 18 4. Countable Atomic Models 18 5. Copying . 22 6. Dimension . . . . . . . 26 Part III.
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