Zermelo S Axiom Of Choice

This book grew out of my interest in what is common to three disciplines: mathematics, philosophy, and history. The origins of Zermelo's Axiom of Choice, as well as the controversy that it engendered, certainly lie in that intersection. Since the time of Aristotle, mathematics has been concerned alternately with its assumptions and with the objects, such as number and space, about which those assumptions were made. In the historical context of Zermelo's Axiom, I have explored both the vagaries and the fertility of this alternating concern. Though Zermelo's research has provided the focus for this book, much of it is devoted to the problems from which his work originated and to the later developments which, directly or indirectly, he inspired. A few remarks about format are in order. In this book a publication is indicated by a date after a name; so Hilbert 1926, 178 refers to page 178 of an article written by Hilbert, published in 1926, and listed in the bibliography.

"This book chronicles the work of mathematician Ernst Zermelo (1871-1953) and his development of set theory's crucial principle, the axiom of choice. It covers the axiom's formulation during the early 20th century, the controversy it engendered, and its current central place in set theory and mathematical logic. 1982 edition"--

Comprehensive and self-contained text examines the axiom's relative strengths and consequences, including its consistency and independence, relation to permutation models, and examples and counterexamples of its use. 1973 edition.

This book provides a concise and self-contained introduction to the foundations of mathematics. The first part covers the fundamental notions of mathematical logic, including logical axioms, formal proofs and the basics of model theory. Building on this, in the second and third part of the book the authors present detailed proofs of Gödel’s classical completeness and incompleteness theorems. In particular, the book includes a full proof of Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem which states that it is impossible to prove the consistency of arithmetic within its axioms. The final part is dedicated to an introduction into modern axiomatic set theory based on the Zermelo’s axioms, containing a presentation of Gödel’s constructible universe of sets. A recurring theme in the whole book consists of standard and non-standard models of several theories, such as Peano arithmetic, Presburger arithmetic and the real numbers. The book addresses undergraduate mathematics students and is suitable for a one or two semester introductory course into logic and set theory. Each chapter concludes with a list of exercises.

This book presents an overview of the development of the Axiom of Choice since its introduction by Zermelo at the beginning of the last century. The book surveys the Axiom of Choice from three perspectives. The first, or mathematical perspective, is that of the "working mathematician". This perspective brings into view the manifold applications of the Axiom of Choice-usually in the guise of Zorn s Lemma- in a great variety of areas of mathematics. The second, foundational, perspective is that of the logician or constructive mathematician concerned with the foundational status of the Axiom of Choice. The third, topos-theoretical, perspective is that taken by the mathematician or logician investigating the role of the Axiom of Choice in topos theory. Certain topics-for instance mathematical applications of the Axiom, and its relationship with logic-are discussed in considerable detail. Others-notably the consistency and independence of the Axiom of the usual systems of set theory-are given no more than summary treatment, the justification here being that these topics have been given full expositions elsewhere. It is hoped that the book will be of interest to logicians and mathematicians, both professional and prospective.

The Principia Mathematica has long been recognised as one of the intellectual landmarks of the century.