Real numbers, generalizations of the reals, and theories of continua (Q5917657)

[The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.] This is a well-chosen collection of papers on the foundations of analysis and related matters. The editor first sets the stage in a clear introduction (pp. vii--xxxii) to the issues that are treated in the papers. The first paper, \textit{E. W. Hobson}'s ``On the infinite and the infinitesimal in mathematical analysis'' (pp. 3-26), was his retiring presidential address to the London Mathematical Society in 1902. It describes with satisfaction the progress made by Weierstrass, Dedekind, and Cantor in the arithmetization of analysis and the founding of set theory, and gives a rather rosy picture of the state of mathematics at that time. There is a big jump in time and in outlook to the second paper, \textit{Douglas S. Bridges}' ``A constructive look at the real number line'' (pp. 29-92). This sketches various aspects of constructive analysis, based on Errett Bishop's version of constructive mathematics. It helps make the constructive approach clearer by showing how it works in concrete cases. The third paper, \textit{J. H. Conway}'s ``The surreals and the reals'' (pp. 93-103), first mentions some new ways of constructing the rationals from the integers and the reals from the rationals. There is a very brief discussion of surreal numbers and of the reals as certain surreal numbers. According to the author, the justification for surreal numbers is that ``they are nothing less than the only correct extension of the notion of real number to the infinitely large and the infinitely small''. The editor also contributes a paper, ``All numbers great and small'' (pp. 239-258), that gives an alternative treatment of surreal numbers that may make them more comprehensible to most mathematicians; however, the motivation behind them can best be gained by reading \textit{J. Conway}'s original work [On numbers and games (1976; Zbl 0334.00004)]. \textit{Gordon Fisher}'s ``Veronese's non-archimedean linear continuum'' (pp. 107-145) first discusses Hahn's important 1907 paper on non-archimedean systems and then deals with Veronese's work on a one-dimensional non-archimedean continuum (which was part of his 1891 book on the foundations of geometry). There is an appendix on Veronese's life and another appendix containing a translation of a section of Veronese's \textit{Fondamenti di geometria} on ``Empirical considerations concerning the rectilinear continuum of intuition''. Later on, the editor also includes a translation of a non-technical paper, ``On non-archimedean geometry'' (pp. 169-187), written by \textit{G. Veronese} in 1909. The editor is also to be thanked for making available \textit{Henri Poincaré}'s perceptive 1902 review of Hilbert's \textit{Foundations of Geometry} (pp. 147-168). \textit{Hourya Sinaceur}'s 1992 paper ``Calculation, order, and continuity'' (pp. 191-206) is an appreciation of the Artin-Schreier theory of real-closed fields and some of its recent extensions. Nonstandard analysis via ultrapowers of the real number system is the principal subject of \textit{H. Jerome Keisler}'s ``The hyperreal line'' (pp. 207-237). In the last paper, ``Rational and real ordinal numbers'' (pp. 259-276), \textit{Dieter Klaua} studies the ordered field \(R_\sigma\) obtained by using Hessenberg's natural addition and multiplication on ordinals in \(\omega_\sigma\) and mimicking the construction of the integers, rationals, and Dedekind reals. He considers various restrictions and extensions of these fields as well as some associated set-theoretic matters. All except the Hobson, Poincaré, and Veronese articles seem to be appearing for the first time in this volume.