Tue, 8 March 2022, 1 pm MST

In the 1970s Saharon Shelah initiated a program to develop classification theory for non-elementary classes, and eventually settled on the setting of abstract elementary classes. For over three decades, limited progress was made, most of which required additional set theoretic axioms. In 2001, Rami Grossberg and I introduced the model theoretic concept of tameness which opened the door for stability results in abstract elementary classes in ZFC. During the following 20 years, tameness along with limit models have been used by several mathematicians to prove categoricity theorems and to develop non-first order analogs to forking calculus and stability theory, solving a very large number of problems posed by Shelah in ZFC. Recently, Marcos Mazari-Armida found applications to Abelian group theory and ring theory. In this presentation I will highlight some of the more surprising results involving tameness and limit models from the past 20 years.

[slides] [video]