Theories incomparable with respect to relative interpretability

Abstract

The present paper concerns the relation of relative interpretability introduced in [8], and arises from a question posed by Tarski: are there two finitely axiomatizable subtheories of the arithmetic of natural numbers neither of which is relatively interpretable in the other? The question was answered affirmatively (without proof) in [3], and the answer was generalized in [4]: for any positive integer n, there exist n finitely axiomatizable subtheories of arithmetic such that no one of them is relatively interpretable in the union of the remainder. A further generalization was announced in [5] and is proved here: there is an infinite set of finitely axiomatizable subtheories of arithmetic such that no one of them is relatively interpretable in the union of the remainder. Several lemmas concerning the existence of self-referential and mutually referential formulas are given in Section 1, and will perhaps be of interest on their own account.