This undergraduate text develops its subject through observations of the physical world, covering finite sets, cardinal numbers, infinite cardinals, and ordinals. Includes exercises with answers. 1958 edition.

What is a number? What is infinity? What is continuity? What is order? Answers to these fundamental questions obtained by late nineteenth-century mathematicians such as Dedekind and Cantor gave birth to set theory. This textbook presents classical set theory in an intuitive but concrete manner. To allow flexibility of topic selection in courses, the book is organized into four relatively independent parts with distinct mathematical flavors. Part I begins with the Dedekind–Peano axioms and ends with the construction of the real numbers. The core Cantor–Dedekind theory of cardinals, orders, and ordinals appears in Part II. Part III focuses on the real continuum. Finally, foundational issues and formal axioms are introduced in Part IV. Each part ends with a postscript chapter discussing topics beyond the scope of the main text, ranging from philosophical remarks to glimpses into landmark results of modern set theory such as the resolution of Lusin's problems on projective sets using determinacy of infinite games and large cardinals. Separating the metamathematical issues into an optional fourth part at the end makes this textbook suitable for students interested in any field of mathematics, not just for those planning to specialize in logic or foundations. There is enough material in the text for a year-long course at the upper-undergraduate level. For shorter one-semester or one-quarter courses, a variety of arrangements of topics are possible. The book will be a useful resource for both experts working in a relevant or adjacent area and beginners wanting to learn set theory via self-study.

"This accessible approach to set theory for upper-level undergraduates poses rigorous but simple arguments. Each definition is accompanied by commentary that motivates and explains new concepts. A historical introduction is followed by discussions of classes and sets, functions, natural and cardinal numbers, the arithmetic of ordinal numbers, and related topics. 1971 edition with new material by the author"--

This unique approach maintains that set theory is the primary mechanism for ideological and theoretical unification in modern mathematics, and its technically informed discussion covers a variety of philosophical issues. 1990 edition.

Set theory is a branch of mathematics with a special subject matter, the infinite, but also a general framework for all modern mathematics, whose notions figure in every branch, pure and applied. This Element will offer a concise introduction, treating the origins of the subject, the basic notion of set, the axioms of set theory and immediate consequences, the set-theoretic reconstruction of mathematics, and the theory of the infinite, touching also on selected topics from higher set theory, controversial axioms and undecided questions, and philosophical issues raised by technical developments.

A wonderful new book ... Potter has written the best philosophical introduction to set theory on the market - Timothy Bays, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

The main notions of set theory (cardinals, ordinals, transfinite induction) are fundamental to all mathematicians, not only to those who specialize in mathematical logic or set-theoretic topology. Basic set theory is generally given a brief overview in courses on analysis, algebra, or topology, even though it is sufficiently important, interesting, and simple to merit its own leisurely treatment. This book provides just that: a leisurely exposition for a diversified audience. It is suitable for a broad range of readers, from undergraduate students to professional mathematicians who want to finally find out what transfinite induction is and why it is always replaced by Zorn's Lemma. The text introduces all main subjects of ``naive'' (nonaxiomatic) set theory: functions, cardinalities, ordered and well-ordered sets, transfinite induction and its applications, ordinals, and operations on ordinals. Included are discussions and proofs of the Cantor-Bernstein Theorem, Cantor's diagonal method, Zorn's Lemma, Zermelo's Theorem, and Hamel bases. With over 150 problems, the book is a complete and accessible introduction to the subject.

Introduction to Set Theory and Topology describes the fundamental concepts of set theory and topology as well as its applicability to analysis, geometry, and other branches of mathematics, including algebra and probability theory. Concepts such as inverse limit, lattice, ideal, filter, commutative diagram, quotient-spaces, completely regular spaces, quasicomponents, and cartesian products of topological spaces are considered. This volume consists of 21 chapters organized into two sections and begins with an introduction to set theory, with emphasis on the propositional calculus and its application to propositions each having one of two logical values, 0 and 1. Operations on sets which are analogous to arithmetic operations are also discussed. The chapters that follow focus on the mapping concept, the power of a set, operations on cardinal numbers, order relations, and well ordering. The section on topology explores metric and topological spaces, continuous mappings, cartesian products, and other spaces such as spaces with a countable base, complete spaces, compact spaces, and connected spaces. The concept of dimension, simplexes and their properties, and cuttings of the plane are also analyzed. This book is intended for students and teachers of mathematics.

This book Introduction to Set Theory is very important in the field of modern algebra. It is very important to study this book to study modern mathematics. This book contain preliminary Notation, Sets, Subsets, Mapping Function and Relation. This book is useful to the students of under graduate, post graduate students and the candidate appearing in various competitions like pre Engineering/I.A.S/ P.C.S. etc. Contents: Preliminary Notation, Relations, Product or Composite of Mapping, Mapping or Functions