Surveys in Set Theory

Book excerpt: This book comprises five expository articles and two research papers on topics of current interest in set theory and the foundations of mathematics. Articles by Baumgartner and Devlin introduce the reader to proper forcing. This is a development by Saharon Shelah of Cohen's method which has led to solutions of problems that resisted attack by forcing methods as originally developed in the 1960s. The article by Guaspari is an introduction to descriptive set theory, a subject that has developed dramatically in the last few years. Articles by Kanamori and Stanley discuss one of the most difficult concepts in contemporary set theory, that of the morass, first created by Ronald Jensen in 1971 to solve the gap-two conjecture in model theory, assuming Godel's axiom of constructibility. The papers by Prikry and Shelah complete the volume by giving the reader the flavour of contemporary research in set theory. This book will be of interest to graduate students and research workers in set theory and mathematical logic.