VOLUME THREE MATHEMATICS Its Content, Methods, and Meaning EDITED BY A. D. Aieksandrov, A. N. Koimogorov, 4. A. Lavreni’ev TRANSLATED BY K. Hirsch Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts | THE M.I.T. PRESSMATEMATHKA EE COMEP)KAHME, METOJbI M 3HAYEHVE Haaatersctso Axagemuu Hayx CCCP Mocxsa 1956 Translation aided by grant NSF-G 16422 from the National Science Foundation Copyright © 1963 by the American Mathematical Society Alll rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Card Number: 64-7547 Printed in the United States of AmericaPREFACE TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION Mathematics, which originated in antiquity in the needs of daily life, has developed into an immense system of widely varied disciplines. Like the other sciences, it reflects the laws of the material world around us and serves as a powerful instrument for our knowledge and mastery of nature. But the high level of abstraction peculiar to mathematics means thai iis newer branches are reiatively inaccessibie to nonspecialisis. This abstract character of mathematics gave birth even in antiquity to idealistic notions about its independence of the material world. In preparing the present volume, the authors have kept in mind the goal of acquainting a sufficiently wide circle of the Soviet intelligentsia with the various mathematical disciplines, their content and methods, the foundations on which they are based, and the paths along which they have developed. As a minimum of necessary mathematical knowledge on the part of the reader, we have assumed only secondary-school mathematics, but the volumes differ from one another with respect to the accessibility of the material contained in them. Readers wishing to acquaint themselves for the first time with the elements of higher mathematics may profitably read the first few chapters, but for a complete understanding of the subsequent parts it will be necessary to have made some study of cor- responding textbooks. The book as a whole will be understood in a fundamental way only by readers who already have some acquaintance with the applications of mathematical analysis; that is to say, with the differential and integral calculus. For such readers, namely teachers of mathematics and instructors in engineering and the natural sciences, it will be particularly important to read those chapters which introduce the newer branches of mathematics. v