Analysis With An Introduction to Proof

A student's first encounter with analysis has been widely regarded as the most difficult course in the undergraduate mathematics curriculum. This is due not so much to the complexity of the topics as to what the student is asked to do with them. After years of emphasizing computation (with only a brief diversion in high school geometry), the student is now expected to be able to read, understand, and actually construct mathematical proofs. Unfortunately, often very little groundwork has been laid to explain the nature and techniques of proof. This text seeks to aid students in their transition to abstract mathematics in two ways: by providing an introductory discussion of logic, and by giving attention throughout the text to the structure and nature of the arguments being used. The first three editions have been praised for their readability and their student-oriented approach. This revision builds on those strengths. Small changes have been made in many sections to clarify the exposition, more than 150 new exercises have been added, and each section now ends with a review of key terms. This emphasizes the important role of definitions and helps students organize their studying. In the back of the book there is now a Glossary of Key Terms that gives the meaning of each term and lists the page on which the term is first introduced. A unique feature of the text is the inclusion of more than 250 true/false questions that relate directly to the reading. These questions have been carefully worded to anticipate common student errors. They encourage the students to read the text carefully and think critically about what they have read. Often the justification for an answer of "false" will be an example that the students can add to their growing collection of counterexamples. The ordering of these true/false questions has been updated in this edition to follow more closely the flow of each section. As in earlier editions, the text also includes more than a hundred practice problems. Generally, these problems are not very difficult, and it is intended that students should stop to work them as they read. The answers are given at the end of each section just prior to the exercises. The students should also be encouraged to read (if not attempt) most of the exercises. They are viewed as an integral part of the text and vary in difficulty from the routine to the challenging. Those exercises that are used in A later section are marked with an asterisk. Exercises marked by a star * have hints in the back of the book. These hints should be used only after a serious attempt to solve an exercise has proved futile. The overall organization of the book remains the same as in the earlier editions. The first chapter takes a careful (albeit nontechnical) look at the laws of logic and then examines how these laws are used in the structuring of mathematical arguments. The second chapter discusses the two main foundations of analysis: sets and functions. This provides an elementary setting in which to practice the techniques encountered in the previous chapter. Chapter 3 develops the properties of the real numbersRas a complete ordered field and introduces the topological concepts of neighborhoods, open sets, closed sets, and compact sets. The remaining chapters cover the topics usually included in an analysis of functions of a real variable: sequences, continuity, differentiation, integration, and series. The text has been written in a way designed to provide flexibility in the pacing of topics. If only one term is available, the first chapter can be assigned as outside reading. Chapter 2 and the first half of Chapter 3 can be covered quickly, again with much of the reading being left to the student. By so doing, the remainder of the book can be covered adequately in a single semester. Alternatively, depending on the students' background and interests, one can concentrate on developing the first five chaptLay, Steven R. is the author of 'Analysis With An Introduction to Proof', published 2004 under ISBN 9780131481015 and ISBN 0131481010.