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Finiteness conditions and distributive laws for Boolean algebras
Author(s) -
Erné Marcel
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
mathematical logic quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.473
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1521-3870
pISSN - 0942-5616
DOI - 10.1002/malq.200810034
Subject(s) - mathematics , stone's representation theorem for boolean algebras , complete boolean algebra , boolean algebras canonically defined , two element boolean algebra , distributive property , free boolean algebra , converse , axiom , boolean algebra , interior algebra , discrete mathematics , countable set , pure mathematics , algebra over a field , division algebra , subalgebra , algebra representation , geometry
We compare diverse degrees of compactness and finiteness in Boolean algebras with each other and investigate the influence of weak choice principles. Our arguments rely on a discussion of infinitary distributive laws and generalized prime elements in Boolean algebras. In ZF set theory without choice, a Boolean algebra is Dedekind finite if and only if it satisfies the ascending chain condition. The Denumerable Subset Axiom (DS) implies finiteness of Boolean algebras with compact top, whereas the converse fails in ZF. Moreover, we derive from DS the atomicity of continuous Boolean algebras. Some of the results extend to more general structures like pseudocomplemented semilattices (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)