Set Theory and the Foundations of Mathematics

by Sylvain Poirier

This work aims to rebuild mathematics in deep, clarified and optimized ways, from model theory and a new formalization of set theory, to universal algebra and tensors.

This new approach started to be written in French and is still incomplete there (about 40 pages nearly ready, 20 or 30 more pages in draft, and 50 to 100 more pages in plans). The translation into English of what is ready, just started and will be progressively completed in the next few weeks.
The ambition of this approach is to combine the following advantages by a new structure of progression:

(If anyone would like to help translating contents from French, it could help to speed up the development of this project. Also, the English vocabulary used here may need little corrections as I'm not native English speaker and I need to name some concepts that may sometimes be not very common. Example: if E is the set of possible values of a variable x, do we say E is the "domain" or the "range" of x (or another name) ?)

Overview of some features of the foundations of mathematics, focusing on the philosophical aspects, with metaphysical consequences. (shorter, more general and less rigorous than the below)

Here will be the contents of the first 40 pages or so (already written in French):

1. Set theory (start)  (html - pdf) - (14 pages: 10 for the main sections + 4 for complements).

1.1. Introduction to the foundation of mathematics
1.2. Variables, sets, functions and operations
1.3. Structure of theories: objects, meta-objects, types and structures
1.4. Terms and formulas; connectives
1.5. Classes in set theory
1.6. Bound variables in set theory
1.7. Quantifiers
1.8. First set theory axioms
1.9. Set generation principle

Metamathematical Complements

1.A. Completeness and Incompleteness Theorems
1.B. Metamathematical time and Zeno's Paradox
1.C. The relative sense of open quantifiers
1.D. Nature of classes and the set generation principle
1.E. Concrete examples
1.F. Can a set be an element of itself ?
1.G. Note on alternative logics
(Another section "Force hierarchy of set theories" instead of being included here will be later integrated in the above overview).

2. Elementary constructions (translation in progress - ultimately 12 pdf pages ?)

2.1. Tuples, families
2.2. Operators on sets
2.3. Uniqueness quantifier
2.4. Properties of functions
2.5. The powerset axiom
2.6. Canonical bijections
2.7. Binary relations on a set
2.8. Equivalence relations and partitions
2.9. Axiom of choice
2.10. Notions on ordered sets

3. Galois connections (12 pdf pages ?)
3.1. Galois connections
3.2. Monotone Galois connections
3.3. Upper and lower bounds
3.4. Complete lattices
3.5. Fixed point theorem
3.6. Transport of closure
3.7. Preorder generated by a relation
3.8. Finite sets
3.9. Generated equivalence relations, and more
3.10. Well-founded relations

4. Universal algebra I


Here is a list of physical theories that will progressively link to other pages presenting each theory. These already include an introduction to quantum physics
.

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