[FOM] informal poll terms in logic II: pure and applied model theory

[John Baldwin]

Survey question 2: pure and applied logic.

Here there were 4 responses of archaic and 5 of specialized.

I read most but not all responses  as referring to the usage I had in mind:

The distinction labeled in the seventies between East Coast (Robinson,
Kochen et al)
studying model theory of algebra and West Coast (Morley, Tarski, Vaught)
studying `set theory based model theory'. As Pillay pointed out at the 2000
ASL  meeting the large gulf has vanished as the organizing principles and
methods of the stability hierarchy (supplemented by o-minimality)
now pervade most areas of that model theoretic community.


However the distinction does still represent different interests
There are other groups doing model theory that are not in this general
orbit -applications in computer science, theory of arithmetic, modal logic
and others

A few response took pure and applied in the sense roughly of pure and
applied logic.

There were 15 responses to the rather ill-constructed survey asking

I now repeat the background parameters.

whether certain distinction between pairs of terms were archaic,
specialized or unknown to the respondent.

I deliberately gave no explanation of context and this sometimes
resulted in quite different rationales for the answers.

Given the loose phrasing of the question there were many different
responses to some the pairs.  I primarily report numbers that give
insight about the community's understanding.

Since I think fom posts should be short, I will report the responses
to each question in a different post over the next week.



John T. Baldwin
Professor Emeritus
Department of Mathematics, Statistics,
and Computer Science M/C 249
jbaldwin at uic.edu
851 S. Morgan
Chicago IL
60607
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