Several amazing discoveries about compact metrizable spaces in ZF

Abstract

In the absence of the axiom of choice, the set-theoretic status of many natural statements about metrizable compact spaces is investigated. Some of the statements are provable in $\mathbf{ZF}$, some are shown to be independent of $\mathbf{ZF}$. For independence results, distinct models of $\mathbf{ZF}$ and permutation models of $\mathbf{ZFA}$ with transfer theorems of Pincus are applied. New symmetric models are constructed in each of which the power set of $\mathbb{R}$ is well-orderable, the Continuum Hypothesis is satisfied but a denumerable family of non-empty finite sets can fail to have a choice function, and a compact metrizable space need not be embeddable into the Tychonoff cube $[0, 1]^{\mathbb{R}}$.