Re the importance of notation:
No one has mentioned the impact of the notation introduced by Bourbaki
(which surely has defined much of the direction of mathematics for a large
part of this century). Indeed what would our pure mathematics look like
without the Bourbaki formalism? Didn't it become the de-facto standard?
(before the widespread use of computers).
By the way does anyone know if there is in existence a list (or summary) of
the notation (symbols and mathematical words) introduced by Bourbaki, eg
the symbol for the null set and the symbols Q and Z for the rationals and
the integers?
Thank you
Julie Tolmie
Australian National University