Ebook: Sets: Naïve, Axiomatic and Applied

Set theory is a funny discipline. For ages and ages mathematics has managed without set theory, but nowadays one gets from the average textbook the impression that set theory is absolutely indispensable. Even texts for high schools (not to mention nursery schools) start with sets, unions, intersections, etc.

Among the professional mathematicians there are some who claim that "there are no things but sets" How do these extremists justify their opinion? We will try to unearth some of the motivation for a belief in the supremacy of set theory.