# Superstrong cardinals are never Laver indestructible, and neither are extendible, almost huge and rank-into-rank cardinals

Set theory seminarFriday, February 1, 201312:00 amGC 5383New location

# Superstrong cardinals are never Laver indestructible, and neither are extendible, almost huge and rank-into-rank cardinals

### The City University of New York

Although the large cardinal indestructibility phenomenon, initiated with Laver’s seminal 1978 result that any supercompact cardinal $kappa$ can be made indestructible by $ltkappa$-directed closed forcing and continued with the Gitik-Shelah treatment of strong cardinals, is by now nearly pervasive in set theory, nevertheless I shall show that no superstrong cardinal—and hence also no $1$-extendible cardinal, no almost huge cardinal and no rank-into-rank cardinal—can be made indestructible, even by comparatively mild forcing: all such cardinals $kappa$ are destroyed by $Add(kappa,1)$, by $Add(kappa,kappa^+)$, by $Add(kappa^+,1)$ and by many other commonly considered forcing notions.

This is very recent joint work with Konstantinos Tsaprounis and Joan Bagaria.

Professor Hamkins (Ph.D. 1994 UC Berkeley) conducts research in mathematical and philosophical logic, particularly set theory, with a focus on the mathematics and philosophy of the infinite.  He has been particularly interested in the interaction of forcing and large cardinals, two central themes of contemporary set-theoretic research.  He has worked in the theory of infinitary computability, introducing (with A. Lewis and J. Kidder) the theory of infinite time Turing machines, as well as in the theory of infinitary utilitarianism and, more recently, infinite chess.  His work on the automorphism tower problem lies at the intersection of group theory and set theory.  Recently, he has been preoccupied with various mathematical and philosophical issues surrounding the set-theoretic multiverse, engaging with the emerging debate on pluralism in the philosophy of set theory, as well as the mathematical questions to which they lead, such as in his work on the modal logic of forcing and set-theoretic geology.

Posted by on January 22nd, 2013
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