We apply the techniques of computable model theory to the distance function
of a graph. This task leads us to adapt the definitions of several truth-table
reducibilities so that they apply to functions as well as to sets, and we prove
assorted theorems about the new reducibilities and about functions which have
nonincreasing computable approximations.
Working in the Blum-Shub-Smale model of computation on the real numbers, we
answer several questions of Meer and Ziegler. First, we show that, for each
natural number d, an oracle for the set of algebraic real numbers of degree at
most d is insufficient to allow an oracle BSS-machine to decide membership in
the set of algebraic numbers of degree d + 1. We add a number of further
results on relative computability of these sets and their unions.
We examine the relation of BSS-reducibility on subsets of the real numbers.
The question was asked recently (and anonymously) whether it is possible for
the halting problem H in BSS-computation to be BSS-reducible to a countable
set. Intuitively, it seems that a countable set ought not to contain enough
information to decide membership in a reasonably complex (uncountable) set such
as H. We confirm this intuition, and prove a more general theorem linking the
cardinality of the oracle set to the cardinality, in a local sense, of the set
which it computes.