Forbidden substructures and combinatorial dichotomies: WQO and universality

Abstract

We discuss two combinatorial problems concerning classes of finite or countable structures of combinatorial type. We consider classes determined by a finite set of finite constraints (forbidden substructures). Questions about such classes of structures are naturally viewed as algorithmic decision problems, taking the finite set of constraints as the input. While the two problems we consider have been studied in a number of natural contexts, it remains far from clear whether they are decidable in their general form. This broad question leads to a number of more concrete problems. We discuss twelve open problems of varying levels of concreteness, and we point to the “Hairy Ball Problem” as a particularly concrete problem, which we give first in direct model theoretic terms, and then decoded as an explicit graph theoretic problem.