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Borel and Analytic Sets, Perfect Sets, and Determinacy: Examples and Counterexamples
1 · Prerequisites
- Borel and Analytic Sets, Perfect Sets, and Determinacy
- Cardinal Arithmetic, Cofinality and the Alephs
- Compactness
- Compactness in Metric Spaces
- Complete Metrizability, Čech-Completeness, and Baire Category
- Completeness, Completion, and Uniform Continuity
- Construction of the Natural Numbers
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Cauchy Sequences
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Dedekind Cuts
- Countability and Uncountability
- Countability Axioms and Cardinal Functions
- Finite Counting, Factorials and Binomial Coefficients
- Foundations of the Real Numbers for Analysis
- Metric Spaces
- Monotone Sequences, Bolzano-Weierstrass, and Cauchy Completeness
- Order, Zorn's Lemma, and the Axiom of Choice
- Ordinal Arithmetic and the First Uncountable Ordinal
- Ordinals, Cardinals, and Transfinite Recursion
- Relations, Functions, and Quotients
- Roots, Rational Powers, and Classical Inequalities
- Sequences and Limits
- Series: Convergence and the Nonnegative Tests
- Subspaces, Products, and Quotients
- Suprema and Infima
- The Cantor Set, Baire Category, and Measure Zero in ℝ
- The ZFC Axioms and the Basic Set Constructions
- Topological Spaces and Continuity
- Well-Founded Relations, Rank, and the Cumulative Hierarchy
2 · Summary
These worked examples calculate empty and singleton tree bodies, a first-move clopen game, and a well-founded code for a closed cylinder complement. A terminal-taboo counterexample explains why a winning position need not retain every child. The non-Borel refutation transfers a choice-based undetermined payoff into the real line by a continuous injection; Borel determinacy rules out Borelness of its image.
3 · Logical flowchart
4 · Definitions, theorems and proofs
None yet.
5 · Examples, counterexamples and false statements
Empty and single-branch tree codes
Example
In ZF, the empty tree has empty body. For each the prefix tree has body . In particular, for , the tree has body exactly the constant-zero sequence. These bodies are closed in the cylinder topology.
Facts & Assumptions
A branch has every finite prefix in its tree, including the empty prefix; see Trees and their bodies.
Verification
Given: , as above, and the empty tree.
Every putative branch of would have to satisfy , which is false. Hence , a closed set.
Restricting to gives , so is a tree. The point lies in its body. If , its prefix of length equals the unique member of of that length. Consequently for every , giving .
For , step 1.2 gives at every coordinate, the claimed concrete calculation. If , choose one differing coordinate ; its cylinder of length excludes . Thus the complement of is open, establishing the closedness assertion. QED.
A clopen game decided by the first move
Example
On let . Player I wins by the strategy at every even-length position . The payoff is clopen.
Facts & Assumptions
Full-position strategies and their winning condition are in Gale–Stewart games and strategies.
Finite-prefix cylinders form the topology of Baire sequence space and its cylinder topology.
Verification
Given: The full natural-number tree, payoff , and the constant-zero I strategy.
Every belongs to the full tree, so is a legal strategy, including at . We have and , both open by F2. Hence is clopen.
Every branch consistent with satisfies , so belongs to . For example, if II always plays , the unique compatible branch is and its first coordinate is . The same first-coordinate calculation holds for every sequence of II moves, proving that wins. QED.
A winning taboo position can have a nonwinning child
Statement refuted
In a game with terminal taboos, a position from which a player can force a terminal taboo for the opponent need not have only such winning children. In particular, deleting all positions from which either player can force an opponent taboo need not leave a prefix-closed tree. Here infinite play does not count as successful terminal reachability for either player.
Facts & Assumptions
A terminal taboo loses for its named player, while nonterminal moves and fixed-history parity are as in Game trees with terminal taboos.
Counterexample
Given: The tree . Its only terminal node is ; declare it taboo for II. The root is I-to-move. For definiteness the infinite payoff is empty; terminal reachability ignores that payoff.
Prefixes of are the root or words with , all listed in . The only other nonempty word is , whose sole proper prefix is the root. Thus is a nonempty tree. The node is terminal and every node on the other ray has the unique child obtained by appending , verifying the asserted terminal partition.
At the root I can choose and reach the II taboo immediately. Below the child every legal continuation is forced and the only maximal continuation is the infinite sequence . No continuation from that child reaches a terminal node. Neither player can therefore force an opponent terminal taboo there, although I can do so at its parent.
The proposed deletion removes the root by step 2.1 and retains by the same step. A set retaining but omitting its empty prefix is not a tree. This is the required witness against both the child assertion and the resulting deletion rule. QED.
Remarks
This witness corrects the downward-closure assertion in the proof of Buffard–Levrel–Mayo Lemma 1 (arXiv v1). It does not refute a reduction that keeps only nodes all of whose prefixes avoid the two reachability-winning sets. It is an AI-generated counterexample and is not a dependency supplier.
Every set of reals is Borel
Statement
False assertion: every subset of is Borel.
In ZFC, take an undetermined payoff and the continuous injection supplied below. The set e[A] is a witness that the assertion fails.
Facts & Assumptions
Choice produces an undetermined natural-number game supplies A with neither player winning under AC.
Continuous injections of sequence spaces into the real line gives the continuous injection e in ZF.
Borel hierarchy exhaustion and preservation by continuous pullback makes continuous inverse images of Borel sets Borel in ZFC.
Borel games are determined determines every Borel natural-number payoff in ZFC.
Assume The Axiom of Choice.
Refutation
Given: Work in ZFC throughout this counterexample.
F1 with A1 supplies A and F2 supplies e. Suppose e[A] were Borel in . By continuity of e, F3 with A1 would make Borel in Baire space. This preimage equals A: if e(x)=e(a) for some a in A, injectivity gives x=a; conversely each a in A maps into e[A].
Then F4 with A1 would give a winning strategy for one player for payoff A, contradicting its defining property from F1. Hence e[A] is not Borel and is the required subset of the real line witnessing the failed assertion. QED.
Evaluating elementary Borel codes
Example
Fix a space with enumerated basis and . The leaf code evaluates to ; a complement above that leaf evaluates to ; an empty union evaluates to ; and a complement above an empty union evaluates to . These calculations hold in ZF.
Facts & Assumptions
Code nodes, their labels, and their well-foundedness requirement are in Well-founded Borel evaluation codes.
Existence and uniqueness of Borel-code evaluation provides unique evaluation in ZF by the three displayed rules.
Verification
Given: , and the fixed index .
Let with root label leaf. It is valid since it has no child and its empty relation is well-founded. F2 gives . For label the root complement and leaf. Then and , which is closed because is open.
On put a union label; then . On put a complement at the root and a union at . Then and .
In each two-node tree the sole child is terminal; any subset containing it has it as a minimal element, and a remaining nonempty subset is the singleton root. Thus the child relation is well-founded, and the complement nodes have exactly child zero as required. All four codes are valid even when or is empty or all of . The empty underlying tree is not one of these codes, because F1 requires a root. QED.
Sources
- Application of Lemma 1.14(ii)
- Opening definitions of games and strategies
- Lemma 1 proof, downward-closure assertion (claim refuted by the displayed local tree)
- Exercise 6.8, p55, and Borel determinacy Theorem 6.9, p56; the continuous injection transfer is proved locally. This is a derived false-statement witness, not an attributed source claim
- Definitions 7.1–7.2, pp62–63; examples derived directly from the local labelled-code convention