This is the softcover reprint of the 1971 English translation of the first four chapters of Bourbaki’s Topologie Generale. It gives all basics of the subject, starting from definitions. Important classes of topological spaces are studied, and uniform structures are introduced and applied to topological groups. In addition, real numbers are constructed and their properties established.
This text contains a detailed introduction to general topology and an introduction to algebraic topology via its most classical and elementary segment. Proofs of theorems are separated from their formulations and are gathered at the end of each chapter, making this book appear like a problem book and also giving it appeal to the expert as a handbook. The book includes about 1,000 exercises.
Topology continues to be a topic of prime importance in contemporary mathematics, but until the publication of this book there were few if any introductions to topology for undergraduates. This book remedied that need by offering a carefully thought-out, graduated approach to point set topology at the undergraduate level. To make the book as accessible as possible, the author approaches topology from a geometric and axiomatic standpoint; geometric, because most students come to the subject with a good deal of geometry behind them, enabling them to use their geometric intuition; axiomatic, because it parallels the student's experience with modern algebra, and keeps the book in harmony with current trends in mathematics. After a discussion of such preliminary topics as the algebra of sets, Euler-Venn diagrams and infinite sets, the author takes up basic definitions and theorems regarding topological spaces (Chapter 1). The second chapter deals with continuous functions (mappings) and homeomorphisms, followed by two chapters on special types of topological spaces (varieties of compactness and varieties of connectedness). Chapter 5 covers metric spaces. Since basic point set topology serves as a foundation not only for functional analysis but also for more advanced work in point set topology and algebraic topology, the author has included topics aimed at students with interests other than analysis. Moreover, Dr. Baum has supplied quite detailed proofs in the beginning to help students approaching this type of axiomatic mathematics for the first time. Similarly, in the first part of the book problems are elementary, but they become progressively more difficult toward the end of the book. References have been supplied to suggest further reading to the interested student.
Comprehensive text for beginning graduate-level students and professionals. "The clarity of the author's thought and the carefulness of his exposition make reading this book a pleasure." — Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 1955 edition.
This book is a course in general topology, intended for students in the first year of the second cycle (in other words, students in their third univer sity year). The course was taught during the first semester of the 1979-80 academic year (three hours a week of lecture, four hours a week of guided work). Topology is the study of the notions of limit and continuity and thus is, in principle, very ancient. However, we shall limit ourselves to the origins of the theory since the nineteenth century. One of the sources of topology is the effort to clarify the theory of real-valued functions of a real variable: uniform continuity, uniform convergence, equicontinuity, Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem (this work is historically inseparable from the attempts to define with precision what the real numbers are). Cauchy was one of the pioneers in this direction, but the errors that slip into his work prove how hard it was to isolate the right concepts. Cantor came along a bit later; his researches into trigonometric series led him to study in detail sets of points of R (whence the concepts of open set and closed set in R, which in his work are intermingled with much subtler concepts). The foregoing alone does not justify the very general framework in which this course is set. The fact is that the concepts mentioned above have shown themselves to be useful for objects other than the real numbers.
This book is designed for the reader who wants to get a general view of the terminology of General Topology with minimal time and effort. The reader, whom we assume to have only a rudimentary knowledge of set theory, algebra and analysis, will be able to find what they want if they will properly use the index. However, this book contains very few proofs and the reader who wants to study more systematically will find sufficiently many references in the book.Key features:• More terms from General Topology than any other book ever published• Short and informative articles• Authors include the majority of top researchers in the field• Extensive indexing of terms
This is the softcover reprint of the 1971 English translation of the first four chapters of Bourbaki’s Topologie Generale. It gives all basics of the subject, starting from definitions. Important classes of topological spaces are studied, and uniform structures are introduced and applied to topological groups. In addition, real numbers are constructed and their properties established.
Among the best available reference introductions to general topology, this volume is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. Includes historical notes and over 340 detailed exercises. 1970 edition. Includes 27 figures.
