A point x is a (bow) tie-point of a space X if X∖x can be partitioned into (relatively) clopen sets each with x in its closure. We denote this as $X=A{\bowtie }_{x}B$ where A, B are the closed sets which have a unique common accumulation point x. Tie-points have appeared in the construction of non-trivial autohomeomorphisms of βℕ = ℕ* (by Veličković and Shelah Steprans) and in the recent study (by Levy and Dow Techanie) of precisely 2-to-1 maps on ℕ*. In these cases the tie-points have been the unique fixed point...

We study polychromatic Ramsey theory with a focus on colourings of [ω 2]2. We show that in the absence of GCH there is a wide range of possibilities. In particular each of the following is consistent relative to the consistency of ZFC: (1) 2ω = ω 2 and ${\omega }_2{\to }^{poly}{\left(\alpha \right)}_{{\aleph }_0-bdd}^2$ for every α <ω 2; (2) 2ω = ω 2 and ${\omega }_2{\nrightarrow }^{poly}{\left({\omega }_1\right)}_{2-bdd}^2$ .

We introduce a very weak version of the square principle which may hold even under failure of the generalized continuum hypothesis. Under this weak square principle, we give a new characterization (Theorem 10) of partial orderings with κ-Freese-Nation property (see below for the definition). The characterization is not a ZFC theorem: assuming Chang’s Conjecture for ${\aleph }_{\omega }$, we can find a counter-example to the characterization (Theorem 12). We then show that, in the model obtained by adding Cohen reals,...