Talk:Naive Set Theory (book)

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How about moving this article to Naive Set Theory (book)?[edit]

The reason is that this title differs from Naive set theory just in the use of capitals. As such, my bot, cannot distinguish these two articles when updating the list of mathematical topics. Fix your bot you may say. But that then creates other problems. Often some articles are first created with one choice of capitals, then only to be moved later to an article with some letters made lowercase, or sometimes the other way aroud. This would create duplicates in the list of mathematical topics.

Also, I have a feel that two distinct articles need to be distinguished by more than just the case of letters. Other opinions? Oleg Alexandrov 21:55, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming this to Naive Set Theory (book) is probably the right thing to do. This page should probably redirect to Naive set theory. -- Fropuff 02:55, 2005 May 31 (UTC)

Done. Oleg Alexandrov 19:00, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism?[edit]

I truly liked the book when I first got it. I realize now that it was because I didn't understand ANYTHING in it and was filled with awe bacause of the tone of the author. Now (a few years later) I do understand a little bit of it (all? - well you get it, see below;).

My reaction now when I try to read it as a reference is like "oh my god, how can anyone learn from that?" Maybe someone can, but I didn't. Contrary to what the article say there is hardly a single mathematical proof in the book. The author confirms this himself in the preface. "There is no math here guys. It's a long series of hints. You do the math yourself."

The whole book is like that. The easy parts appear as immensly difficult (because of the lack of math) and the truly nontrivial is often tossed off as exercise (because of the lack of math - it would probably make the book too long). I'e seen others get the same reaction.

Put it this way: The book is not mathematically incorrect. But it also is not mathematically correct simply because there is no math to be found. Or - some still think it makes a great companion book to a mathematics book on naive set theory. YohanN7 (talk) 15:40, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

This might be useful: Albers, Donald J. (1982). "Paul Halmos: Maverick Mathologist". Two-Year College Mathematics Journal. 13 (4). Mathematical Association of America: 226–242. doi:10.2307/3027125. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) Deltahedron (talk) 19:27, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Errata[edit]

Does this article really need a section on Errata? That section has no (inline) citations, and, most importantly, no reference to a specific version of the text. It unequivocally strikes me as violating WP:NOT, but I can't put my finger on what sort of work an "Errata" section would be appropriate in. So I'm coming here to propose the same, rather than boldly editing. 2601:240:C400:D60:25E9:DC5:567C:2499 (talk) 22:42, 29 June 2017 (UTC)Jacob Manaker[reply]