I finished this book about four months ago, and time is making me increasingly glad that I read it. In particular, its treatment of countable infinities, functions, proof by induction, and the Peano axioms have been worth their weight in gold. When I encounter similar subjects ‘out in the wild’, I can approach them with relative skill and trust my intuitions in a way that I couldn’t before. It’s really growing on me.
That said, as a near-introduction to set theory, it was a very difficult read at times. It was a treatment of mathematics far deeper than I had come to expect from my university courses (which were largely in continuous mathematics, according to ancient engineers’ tradition). If school has trained you to approach mathematical subjects as a tool the same way it did me, you’ll need to adjust your expectations. This book is about virtuosity, not just surveying the tools.
I finished this book about four months ago, and time is making me increasingly glad that I read it. In particular, its treatment of countable infinities, functions, proof by induction, and the Peano axioms have been worth their weight in gold. When I encounter similar subjects ‘out in the wild’, I can approach them with relative skill and trust my intuitions in a way that I couldn’t before. It’s really growing on me.
That said, as a near-introduction to set theory, it was a very difficult read at times. It was a treatment of mathematics far deeper than I had come to expect from my university courses (which were largely in continuous mathematics, according to ancient engineers’ tradition). If school has trained you to approach mathematical subjects as a tool the same way it did me, you’ll need to adjust your expectations. This book is about virtuosity, not just surveying the tools.