Re: [HM] Math Words

Gordon Fisher (gfisher@shentel.net)
Sun, 18 Jul 1999 12:32:17

At 06:22 AM 7/18/99 -0400, Bill Barton wrote:

> ... I have become interested in the origin (first use and reason
> for the word chosen) of the following topological terms:
>
> open set / neighbourhood / normal space / complete space / regular space
>

I suggest starting with *Grundzuege der Mengenlehre* by F Hausdorff, and
*Topologie* by P Aleksandrov and H Hopf, and the references in those. I
think there's a translation into English of the book by Aleksandrov and
Hopf, but I don't think the Hausdorff book has been translated. Despite
the fact that Mengenlehre means theory of sets, there is a fair bit of
early topology in the book by Hausdorff. However, I doubt that he called a
Hausdorff space a Hausdorff space. :-)

Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net