A. Audience. This treatise (consisting of the present VoU and of VoUI,
to be published) is primarily intended to be a textbook for a core
course in mathematics at the advanced undergraduate or the beginning
graduate level. The treatise should also be useful as a textbook for
selected stu- dents in honors programs at the sophomore and junior
level. Finally, it should be of use to theoretically inclined scientists
and engineers who wish to gain a better understanding of those parts of
mathemat- ics that are most likely to help them gain insight into the
conceptual foundations of the scientific discipline of their interest.
B. Prerequisites. Before studying this treatise, a student should be
familiar with the material summarized in Chapters 0 and 1 of Vol.1.
Three one-semester courses in serious mathematics should be sufficient
to gain such fa- miliarity. The first should be an introduction to
contemporary math- ematics and should cover sets, families, mappings,
relations, number systems, and basic algebraic structures. The second
should be an in- troduction to rigorous real analysis, dealing with real
numbers and real sequences, and with limits, continuity,
differentiation, and integration of real functions of one real variable.
The third should be an intro- duction to linear algebra, with emphasis
on concepts rather than on computational procedures. C. Organization.