The Structure Of Number Systems

Geared toward undergraduate and beginning graduate students, this study explores natural numbers, integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and complex numbers. Numerous exercises and appendixes supplement the text. 1973 edition.

Additional Editor Is Paul R. Halmos. The University Series In Undergraduate Mathematics.

Learn the history of number systems with this engaging book! This text combines mathematics and literacy skills, and uses practical, real-world examples of problem solving to teach math and language arts content. Students will learn place value while reading about the number systems of the Egyptians and Romans, and also learn important vocabulary terms like cuneiform, binary systems, roman numerals, and more! The full-color images, math charts, and practice problems make learning math easy and fun. The table of contents, glossary, and index will further understanding of math and reading concepts. The Math Talk problems and Explore Math sidebars provide additional learning opportunities while developing students’ higher-order thinking skills.

Number Systems: A Path into Rigorous Mathematics aims to introduce number systems to an undergraduate audience in a way that emphasises the importance of rigour, and with a focus on providing detailed but accessible explanations of theorems and their proofs. The book continually seeks to build upon students' intuitive ideas of how numbers and arithmetic work, and to guide them towards the means to embed this natural understanding into a more structured framework of understanding. The author’s motivation for writing this book is that most previous texts, which have complete coverage of the subject, have not provided the level of explanation needed for first-year students. On the other hand, those that do give good explanations tend to focus broadly on Foundations or Analysis and provide incomplete coverage of Number Systems. Features Approachable for students who have not yet studied mathematics beyond school Does not merely present definitions, theorems and proofs, but also motivates them in terms of intuitive knowledge and discusses methods of proof Draws attention to connections with other areas of mathematics Plenty of exercises for students, both straightforward problems and more in-depth investigations Introduces many concepts that are required in more advanced topics in mathematics.

Although students of analysis are familiar with real and complex numbers, few treatments of analysis deal with the development of such numbers in any depth. An understanding of number systems at a fundamental level is necessary for a deeper grasp of analysis. Beginning with elementary concepts from logic and set theory, this book develops in turn the natural numbers, the integers and the rational, real and complex numbers. The development is motivated by the need to solve polynomial equations, and the book concludes by proving that such equations have solutions in the complex number system.

The subject of this book is the successive construction and development of the basic number systems of mathematics: positive integers, integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and complex numbers. This second edition expands upon the list of suggestions for further reading in Appendix III. From the Preface: ``The present book basically takes for granted the non-constructive set-theoretical foundation of mathematics, which is tacitly if not explicitly accepted by most working mathematicians but which I have since come to reject. Still, whatever one's foundational views, students must be trained in this approach in order to understand modern mathematics. Moreover, most of the material of the present book can be modified so as to be acceptable under alternative constructive and semi-constructive viewpoints, as has been demonstrated in more advanced texts and research articles.''