We study the classes of hypersimple and semicomputable sets as well as their intersection in the weak truth table degrees. We construct degrees that are not bounded by hypersimple degrees outside any non-trivial upper cone of Turing degrees and show that the hypersimple-free c.e. wtt degrees are downwards dense in the c.e. wtt degrees. We also show that there is no maximal (w.r.t. ≤wtt) hypersimple wtt degree. Moreover, we consider the sets that are both hypersimple and semicomputable, characterize them as (...) the (bi-infinite) c.e. cuts of computable orderings of ℕ of order type ω+ω* and study their wtt degrees. We show that there are hypersimple degrees that are not bounded by any hypersimple semicomputable degree, investigate relationships with the join and look for maximal and minimal elements of related classes. (shrink)

We study Δ2 reals x in terms of how they can be approximated symmetrically by a computable sequence of rationals. We deal with a natural notion of ‘approximation representation’ and study how these are related computationally for a fixed x. This is a continuation of earlier work; it aims at a classification of Δ2 reals based on approximation and it turns out to be quite different than the existing ones (based on information content etc.).