Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows.
Buy New
-20% $59.99
FREE delivery Friday, June 5
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: itemspopularsonlineaindemand
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

  • The Joy of Sets: Fundamentals of Contemporary Set Theory (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics)

Follow the author

Get new release updates & improved recommendations
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Joy of Sets: Fundamentals of Contemporary Set Theory (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) 2nd Edition


{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$59.99","priceAmount":59.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"59","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"QjfDlk17%2BGWNtAh3OP40ZyKOi4acXosf5Aujv4L2MSI8BNiqXTqyNEZnCJRjO9LaTXfDesdbSPUU3KxAht25fsRL2T89ChyGglwGAroR29kpfwGXvzEXQ92TEjF8yFY%2Bw1eNOymhQCWGpCw4oooxc6%2FLohS5pSQpzwjQ92BDc6ZYrU9t557ueDdirR0Rq0EH","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$29.99","priceAmount":29.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"29","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"QjfDlk17%2BGWNtAh3OP40ZyKOi4acXosfJI2kq0Vn%2FCzqrQa8fBAVn%2BNL%2FynCcS2zdgaFPl7om5G4lemSI2BoiskaEpHdSe8IvvxFQNJu%2BMeB7Z2PUlIweWyY2d2rT7HkjevB2XsoVZP97oJdt59DmUtTViXgFsk5mUOeMNIefBzEm5KXg92LgQ%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

This book provides an account of those parts of contemporary set theory of direct relevance to other areas of pure mathematics. The intended reader is either an advanced-level mathematics undergraduate, a beginning graduate student in mathematics, or an accomplished mathematician who desires or needs some familiarity with modern set theory. The book is written in a fairly easy-going style, with minimal formalism. In Chapter 1, the basic principles of set theory are developed in a 'naive' manner. Here the notions of 'set', 'union', 'intersection', 'power set', 'rela­ tion', 'function', etc., are defined and discussed. One assumption in writing Chapter 1 has been that, whereas the reader may have met all of these 1 concepts before and be familiar with their usage, she may not have con­ sidered the various notions as forming part of the continuous development of a pure subject (namely, set theory). Consequently, the presentation is at the same time rigorous and fast.

Customers also bought or read

Loading...

Product details

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Keith Devlin
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Dr. Keith Devlin is a mathematician at Stanford University in California. He is a co-founder and Executive Director of the university's H-STAR institute and a co-founder of the Stanford mediaX research network. He has written 33 books and over 80 published research articles. His books have been awarded the Pythagoras Prize and the Peano Prize, and his writing has earned him the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his "innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics." He is "the Math Guy" on National Public Radio. (Archived at http://www.stanford.edu/~kdevlin/MathGuy.html.)

He is a World Economic Forum Fellow, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. In this connection, he is a co-founder and Chief Scientist of an educational technology company called BrainQuake, that designs and build mathematics learning video games. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis. Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition.

He writes a monthly column for the Mathematical Association of America, "Devlin's Angle": http://www.maa.org/devlin/devangle.html; maintains a blog: https://profkeithdevlin.org; and writes articles for the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/keithdevlin-162

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
20 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

  • 5 out of 5 stars
    Very good book!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2013
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    The book is very easy to read! (at some points, well I have trouble learning new material).

    The book begins with naive set theory, the stuff every math major first gets exposed to when they first learn about sets.

    To then introduce precise definitions and the axioms of set theory. It is very detailed, and exercises are pretty challenging, unless you are some kind of genius, it should be an easy read.

    I am your average math major, nothing special but I do enjoy the maths they have. I enjoy the pure side of the subject (like modern algebra and some topology) and this adds as a very interesting topic to know. If I can read it, you probably can too.

    Sets, sets and sets.

    Be careful when reading in public, apparently it looks like the JOY OF SEX to some people :P.

    4 people found this helpful
    Sending feedback...
    Thank you for your feedback.
    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.
  • 5 out of 5 stars
    A good introduction to set theory
    Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2019
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    I’ve used this book (as an instructor) for a couple of set theory sections. The students seem to like it. I would like to see a brief introduction to forcing and a more thorough proof of Godel’s proof of CH’s consistency with set theory.

    Sending feedback...
    Thank you for your feedback.
    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.
  • 4 out of 5 stars
    Joyful sets
    Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2014
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Marvellous book by an acknowledged set theory expert and master expositor. Contains all the basics, ordinals and cardinals, but also advanced topics, such as the surprising existence of Aronszajn trees, non well-founded sets, boolean valued models for independence results, and more. The style is pleasant and lucid, with occasional hints that help the intuition. At several places an appetizing view is given on more advanced developments outside the scope of this introductory book. One of my favourite books.

    3 people found this helpful
    Sending feedback...
    Thank you for your feedback.
    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.
  • 5 out of 5 stars
    A fine introductory text
    Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2013
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    This book is excellent. It gives a thorough introduction to set theory. Some parts of the book I found a bit hard to process, but I just had to think about them and re-read and I finally got it. I'd wait for the price to go down though before you buy it, $50 is a lot for an undergraduate text on set theory.

    3 people found this helpful
    Sending feedback...
    Thank you for your feedback.
    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.
  • 5 out of 5 stars
    Superb!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2005
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Keith Devlin is one of those rare research mathematicians who is able to make recent advances in mathematics understandable and interesting to those whose mathematical education is obsolete or incomplete. I'm in the former category, having done my graduate work in pure math 50 years ago; although I've tried to keep up, constraints of time and other obligations have made it difficult.

    Most modern texts on set theory put the reader to sleep, either because they avoid the important parts ("Set Theory for Those who Don't Want to Know It") or because they employ a degree of formalism that is quite difficult to grasp ("Set Theory Derived by Pure Propositional Logic, Step by Step"). Devlin's book avoids both traps. He presents modern advanced material that illuminates the subject admirably, but is careful not to submerge the reader in overwhelming finicky details. His discussions of constructive set theory, of independence proofs in set theory, and of non-well-founded set theory, are the first ones I've seen that get me excited enough to put the book aside and start exploring some of the implications on my own.

    If I search for anything about the book to criticize, I find only one very minor thing. The sequence of proofs that show "Zorn's Lemma", the Axiom of Choice, the well-ordering principle, "Tukey's Lemma", etc to be equivalent to one another as an addition to the traditional Zermolo-Frankel axioms would be clearer if prefaced by an intuitive discssion of why the various steps in the chain of reasoning "ought" to work as they do; such a discussion helped me a lot many years ago to internalize what's going on. But that comment is just a nit.

    On the other extreme, having once, 30+ years ago, being forced by the exigencies of a real-world problem to blunder through the creation of my own version of fragments of non-well-founded set theory, it gives me much joy to see it exounded as a coherent mthematical topic.

    I read and reread this book, and drag it off the shelf when it occurs to me to ponder on some aspect that I don't fully recall. There are a number of other books on topics in pure mathematics about which I feel the same way, but they are a tiny minority among the deluge of texts that will never be read by anyone who doesn't have to. It's obviously an excellent text for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students, but beyond that, I recommend it to anyone with a working knowledge of pure math whose knowledge of set theory is somewhat behind current knowledge.

    In short, buy a copy!

    37 people found this helpful
    Sending feedback...
    Thank you for your feedback.
    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.
  • 3 out of 5 stars
    Too short on explanation
    Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2005
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    This text is intended for seniors or beginning grads. The first three of seven chapters form a very quick survey of naive set theory. Since it aims at a more advanced audience, it is not as explanatory as Enderton and the exercises assume more maturity. Chapters 4 - 7 survey some advanced topics that aren't part of the usual introductory set theory course. These chapters have no exercises.

    The development lacks a lot in clarity, exercises have only cursory introduction, and the author tends to get ahead of himself, assuming material before introducing it. The text by Roitman is much better and is targeted at the same audience.

    21 people found this helpful
    Sending feedback...
    Thank you for your feedback.
    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.
  • 1 out of 5 stars
    Quite possibly one of the worst mathematics texts I've ever read!
    Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2007
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    This book is completely useless. It is near impossible for someone to learn Axiomatic Set Theory from this book. The majority of the proofs in this book go something like "obvious", "trivial", "left to the reader", "an easy exercise" and so on. The proof may be obvious to the author - but not to someone who is learning the subject for the first time. The majority of my class also hated this text and I don't think our professor like it too much either. In fact, the first time our professor recommended opening the book was to see how the Hebrew letters used for cardinal numbers look typed, since he couldn't draw them correctly on the blackboard! I usually don't write reviews for texts I dislike but I hated this book enough that I felt obliged to caution anyone planning to waste their money on this book.

    22 people found this helpful
    Sending feedback...
    Thank you for your feedback.
    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.
  • 4 out of 5 stars
    A solid introduction to set theory. I used it ...
    Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2018
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    A solid introduction to set theory. I used it with Paul Halmos' "Naive Set Theory" and Yiannis Moschovakis' "Notes on Set Theory" when I started studying set theory in my undergraduate days.

    One person found this helpful
    Sending feedback...
    Thank you for your feedback.
    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

Top reviews from other countries

    Translated by Amazon
    See original
  • 2 out of 5 stars
    Kindle Edition nahezu unlesbar
    Reviewed in Germany on June 20, 2022
    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Das Buch selbst ist eine gute Einführung in die ZF Mengenlehre und mehr. Die Kindle Edition ist allerdings nahezu unlesbar.

    Es wechseln sich zu kleine Facsimiles der einzelnen Buchseiten mit einer Art "Transkription" ab, in welcher nahezu alle mathematischen Formeln in einer "Programmier-" bzw. "Darstellungssprache" angezeigt werden (TEX).

    Leider sind im Buch viele Druckfehler u/o inhaltliche Diskrepanzen zu finden.

    Der Autor pflegt auch einen sehr (sehr!) abgekürzten Stil mit vielen "ist trivial" oder "ist offensichtlich" bei Stellen die für Anfänger ganz und gar nicht so trivial oder offensichtlich sind.

    So wird das Lesen zu einem Erlebnis, dass einem Trecking Ausflug in Tannu Tuva in einem Ochsenkarren vergleichbar ist.

    Schade um das Buch!

    Sending feedback...
    Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.
    Translated from German by Amazon
    See original