Fractals and the monadic second order theory of one successor

Abstract

We show that if $X$ is virtually any classical fractal subset of ${\mathbb{R}}^n$, then $(\mathbb{R},<,+,X)$ interprets the monadic second-order theory of $(\mathbb{N},+1)$. This result is sharp in the sense that the standard model of the monadic second-order theory of $(\mathbb{N},+1)$ is known to interpret $(\mathbb{R},<,+,X)$ for various classical fractals $X$ including the middle-thirds Cantor set and the Sierpinski carpet. Let $X\subseteq {\mathbb{R}}^n$ be closed and nonempty. We show that if the $C^k$-smooth points of $X$ are not dense in $X$ for some $k\ge 1$, then $(\mathbb{R},<,+,X)$ interprets the monadic second-order theory of $(\mathbb{N},+1)$. The same conclusion holds if the packing dimension of $X$ is strictly greater than the topological dimension of $X$ and $X$ has no affine points.

arXiv commentTheorem 5.1 first appeared in a preprint version of arXiv:1709.03150, but has been removed from its final version