Number Systems

Number Systems
A Path into Rigorous Mathematics

Anthony Kay
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Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments ix

1 Introduction: The Purpose of This Book 1

1.1 A Very Brief Historical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Axiomatic Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 The Place of Number Systems within Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Mathematical Writing, Notation, and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.5 Logic and Methods of Proof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Sets and Relations 7

2.1 Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Quantifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.2 Subsets and Equality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.3 Union, Intersection, and Complement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.4 Ordered Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Relations between Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.1 Relations in General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.2 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 Relations on a Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.1 Equivalence Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.2 Order Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.3 Transitivity and Proofs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4 Binary Operations and Algebraic Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3 Natural Numbers, N 19
3.1 Peano’s Axioms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2 Addition of Natural Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.3 Multiplication of Natural Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.4 Exponentiation (Powers) of Natural Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.5 Order in the Natural Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.6 Bounded Sets in N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.7 Cardinality, Finite and Infinite Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.7.1 Some Useful Notations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.7.2 Finite Sets, Their Subsets and Injections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.7.3 Finiteness and Boundedness of Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.7.4 Infinite Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.8 Subtraction: The Inverse of Addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

v
vi Contents

4 Integers, Z 49
4.1 Definition of the Integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2 Arithmetic on Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3 Algebraic Structure of Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3.1 An Abelian Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3.2 A Commutative Ring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.4 Order in Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.4.1 How to Solve Inequalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.5 Finite, Infinite, and Bounded Sets in Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

5 Foundations of Number Theory 73

5.1 Integer Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.2 Expressing Integers in Any Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3 Prime Numbers and Prime Factorisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.3.1 Prime Numbers and Prime Factorisation in N . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.3.2 Primes in Z and Other Number Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.4 Congruence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.5 Modular Arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.6 Zd as an Algebraic Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

6 Rational Numbers, Q 107

6.1 Definition of the Rationals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.2 Addition and Multiplication on Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.3 Countability of Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
6.4 Exponentiation and Its Inverse(s) on Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.4.1 Integer Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.4.2 Roots and Fractional Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
6.4.3 Logarithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.5 Order in Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
6.6 Bounded Sets in Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.7 Expressing Rational Numbers in Any Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.7.1 Terminating Base-b Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.7.2 Repeating Base-b Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.7.3 Fractions from Repeating Base-b Representations . . . . . . . . . . . 141
6.8 Sequences and Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

7 Real Numbers, R 149

7.1 The Requirements for Our Next Number System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.2 Dedekind Cuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
7.3 Order and Bounded Sets in R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
7.4 Addition in R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
7.5 Multiplication in R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
7.6 Exponentiation in R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
7.7 Expressing Real Numbers in Any Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
7.8 Cardinality of R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
7.9 Algebraic and Transcendental Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
 Contents vii

8 Quadratic Extensions I: General Concepts and Extensions of Z and Q 183

8.1 General Concepts of Quadratic Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
8.2 Introduction
√ to Quadratic Rings: Extensions of Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
8.3 Units in Z[ √k] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
8.4 Primes in Z[ k] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8.4.1 Basic Theorems about Primes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8.4.2 Associates Classes and Conjugates of Primes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
8.4.3 How to Search for√Primes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8.5 Prime Factorisation in Z[ k] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
8.6 Quadratic Fields: Extensions of Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
8.6.1 Algebraic Numbers in Quadratic Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
8.6.2 Quadratic Integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
8.7 Norm-Euclidean Rings and Unique Prime Factorisation . . . . . . . . . . . 212

9 Quadratic Extensions II: Complex Numbers, C 221

9.1 Complex Numbers as a Quadratic Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
9.2 Exponentiation by Real Powers in C: A First Approach . . . . . . . . . . . 224
9.3 Geometry of C; the Principal Value of the Argument, and the Number π . 227
9.3.1 The Unit Circle and the Principal Value of the Argument of a
Complex Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
9.3.2 The Number π . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
9.4 Use of the Argument to Define Real Powers in C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
9.4.1 The PVA of a Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
9.4.2 The Multiple-Valued Argument and the Definition of Real Powers . 243
9.4.3 Evaluating Rational Powers of Complex Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . 247
9.5 Exponentiation by Complex Powers; the Number e . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
9.5.1 The Number e and Its Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
9.5.2 General Exponentiation and Logarithms in C . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
9.5.3 Trigonometric Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
9.6 The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
9.6.1 Factorisation of Polynomials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
9.7 Cardinality of C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

10 Yet More Number Systems 275

10.1 Constructible Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
10.2 Hypercomplex Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

11 Where Do We Go from Here? 289

11.1 Number Theory and Abstract Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
11.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

A How to Read Proofs: The “Self-Explanation” Strategy 291

Bibliography 297

Index 299
Preface and Acknowledgments

For me, being a mathematician is not a profession; it is a genetic condition. One of my

earliest memories, from age 3 or 4, is that having realised that the decimal system enabled
me to continue counting indefinitely, I would silently count to myself while getting on with
whatever I was doing; on one occasion I got to 1,112 before being interrupted, and this
number has stayed in my memory ever since that day. So from an early age I appreciated
mathematical concepts as abstractions; but later, during my last two years at school, a
brilliant Physics teacher, Barry Jackson, showed me how exciting it can be to apply mathe-
matics to problems in physics. This set me on a career as an applied mathematician, mainly
working in fluid mechanics.
However, I never lost my love of numbers, or my appreciation of mathematical beauty for
its own sake. My colleagues at Loughborough University understood this: when a new first-
year module on “Numbers” was introduced to the syllabus in 2001 by Andrew Osbaldestin
in his capacity as Teaching Coordinator, he decided that I was the best person to teach it.
He also very kindly provided a rather vague module specification; this left me free to read
around the subject and then decide for myself what I was going to teach. Chapters 3 to 7 of
this book, on the rigorous theory of number systems from the Natural Numbers to the Real
Numbers, contain all the material that I taught in this module, and a substantial amount
of further material that could not be included in a module of 22 lectures. Chapters 8 to 10
contain material on further number systems, in particular the Complex Numbers, which I
would also have included if more time had been available.
Unlike every other module that I have taught (and there have been many!), I did not
feel that any of the existing books on this subject satisfied all the requirements for students:
covering all the material in the module, set at the right level of mathematical sophistication,
and clearly presented. So after some years, I conceived the idea of writing a book myself: I
wanted to cover the theory of number systems rigorously, assuming no other mathematical
knowledge apart from Naı̈ve Set Theory; and the book should be suitable for students with
no previous experience of the rigorous development of mathematical theory from axioms. So
the rigour would need to be tempered with explanations that appealed to students’ intuition.
Just when I eventually felt ready to start writing my book, there appeared Ian Stewart and
David Tall’s The Foundations of Mathematics [Second edition], which does a brilliant job
of introducing students to the rigorous theory of number systems and much else. I almost
wanted to abandon my project; but Stewart and Tall have a broader canvas than I intended
to cover, while I wanted to go into more detail on many aspects. I can only hope that
my work approaches the standard of clarity provided by those eminent authors. Whereas
Edmund Landau, whose Foundations of Analysis is one of the earliest books to cover the
theory of number systems, describes his book as being written in “merciless telegraph style”,
my pursuit of clarity tends to take me to the opposite extreme. I trust that my explanations
will be regarded as thorough and unambiguous, rather than simply verbose!
Although the book grew out of a module for first-year university students, it does include
some more advanced material. Here is a brief guide to what you will find in each chapter.
Following the introductory notes in Chapter 1, the next chapter covers all the Set Theory
that readers will be assumed to know in the remainder of the book. This is Naı̈ve Set

ix
x Preface and Acknowledgments

Theory; in a book dealing with the theory of number systems, I did not want readers to
first spend time getting to grips with the axioms of Set Theory. Chapter 3, on Natural
Numbers, sets the pattern for how number systems will be treated throughout the book:
after defining the numbers, we develop the theory of their binary operations of addition,
multiplication, and exponentiation; then their order relations, properties of bounded sets,
and cardinality are covered. Chapter 4 on Integers contains the first definitions of algebraic
structures (groups and rings), and also introduces methods for solving inequalities, since
these will remain essentially unchanged in subsequent number systems. Chapter 5 may seem
to be a digression from the main thrust of the book: we introduce primes and factorisations,
representations of numbers in any base (we avoid giving base ten its usual pre-eminence),
and modular arithmetic, which will all reappear later in the book; but the only new number
systems defined in this chapter are the finite rings and fields of integers modulo n. Chapters
6 and 7 return to the main objective of defining number systems and examining their
properties, with the theory of Rational Numbers and Real Numbers involving some notably
more difficult proofs than have been required earlier in the book.
If you notice a discontinuity in style between Chapters 7 and 8, that is because the
earlier chapters are based on material that I had taught for many years, whereas the later
chapters consist of material that I would have liked to teach but had not previously writ-
ten any detailed notes for; and also, shortly after I had started on Chapter 8, I had to
take a year off writing the book due to pressure of other work. Anyway, my approach to
Complex Numbers is somewhat unconventional. First, I start by treating them as “just
another quadratic extension”: whereas Chapter 8 is devoted to quadratic extensions of the
Integers and Rationals, (and includes material that might more commonly be found in the
early chapters of a book on Algebraic Number Theory), Complex Numbers are introduced
as a quadratic extension of the Real Numbers. Then a large part of Chapter 9 concerns
the search for how to exponentiate complex numbers: other books either assume knowl-
edge of exponential and trigonometric functions, whose properties actually require quite
sophisticated knowledge of Analysis in the Real Numbers, or else they avoid the subject of
exponentiation altogether. My approach defines geometrical/trigonometrical concepts from
manipulations with numbers (involving quite a lot of work with sequences, and introducing
the famous numbers π and e on the way), rather than using geometry to define properties of
complex numbers. After this, we look briefly at even more complicated number systems in
Chapter 10. Finally, since in my lectures I always liked to draw attention to the connections
between what I was teaching and other topics, my Chapter 11 very briefly discusses how
the theory of number systems leads on to broader topics in mathematics. I have in recent
years encouraged students to use self-explanation when reading proofs and derivations: this
is a strategy which has been found by Lara Alcock, Mark Hodds, and Matthew Inglis to
improve students’ comprehension, and I would like to thank these authors for providing
me with the text for their guidance notes on self-explanation which are reproduced here as
Appendix A.
There are snippets of information on the historical development of the subject scattered
throughout the book, but no attempt has been made to give a coherent account of the history
of number systems. For readers who want to explore this further, go first to the MacTutor
History of Mathematics Archive, hosted on the website of the School of Mathematics and
Statistics at the University of St Andrews, from where there are links to more detailed
historical articles.
There are several features (or quirks) of the book that are worthy of comment here:

• Several concepts of much wider importance in mathematics are introduced just where
they are first encountered in the development of the theory of number systems. So
for example, isomorphism is defined in the chapter on Integers, just where the first
 Preface and Acknowledgments xi

example of an isomorphism (between the Positive Integers and the Natural Numbers)
is encountered; convergence of sequences is defined shortly after we discuss repeating
representations of rational numbers in decimal or other bases, because such represen-
tations are the first example of an infinite sequence that we meet.
• Some of the notation may be regarded as quirky, or even annoying, by some readers.
Where my choice of notation differs from that used by the majority of authors, I have
explained the rationale behind my choice in a note in the text or in a footnote.
• The book contains Exercises within the text of each chapter and Investigations at
the end of most chapters. The Exercises are for the student to fill in some of the
less demanding proofs of theorems, or to gain practice with important procedures.
The Investigations, many of which are based on coursework set for students when I
was teaching the subject, invite the student to explore more deeply and outside the
main thrust of the text. Solutions to the Exercises, and hints relating to some of the
Investigations, are available online at the book’s website.
• Footnotes are indicated by Roman numerals,i because an Arabic numeral as a super-
script can be confused with a power, and the font of special symbols such as asterisk,
dagger, etc. is not big enough for my requirements in some chapters.
As is usual for an undergraduate text, the book does not contain any new research results,
but does involve new presentation of existing knowledge. So unlike a research monograph,
I have not cited references within the text, and the bibliography only includes other books.
But this does not mean that I have not consulted anything outside these books while
preparing this text. For the more advanced material in later chapters I have sometimes read
the original research papers; lecture notes that other academics have kindly made freely
available on the Internet have sometimes helped my thinking, and my ideas have sometimes
even been stimulated by posts on Mathematics StackExchange. So I would like to apologise
to all those people who share their knowledge freely in this way but are not named in this
book, and thank them for their generosity in the true spirit of scientific openness.
Writing this book has sometimes seemed a rather lonely endeavour, but would not have
been done without the encouragement of friends, family, and colleagues. It is traditional
for authors of textbooks to thank their family members for their forbearance while the
author was absorbed in the task of writing; but being the stereotypically obsessive, un-
communicative, and socially awkward mathematician that I am, I doubt whether my wife
and son noticed much difference in my behaviour while I was writing the book; so I would
just like to thank them for their tolerance of me at all times. As well as the published and
internet sources mentioned above and in the bibliography, my thinking has been stimulated
by colleagues in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and the Mathematics Education
Centre at Loughborough University, who have always been a pleasure to work alongside,
even when more senior management has not been so conducive to a good atmosphere.
Regarding the latter, I would particularly like to thank Mark Biggs, who during his brief
tenure as Dean of Science at Loughborough made life so unpleasant that I was pleased to
accept the offer of going part-time on a teaching-only contract, which meant that I had the
time to start writing this book. Finally I would like to thank the editorial staff at CRC
Press, first for taking on this project and then for their encouragement and also forbearance
when deadlines slipped.

i Like this one.

Chapter 1
Introduction: The Purpose of This Book

1.1 A Very Brief Historical Context

In the ancient world, mathematical ideas were developed for practical purposes: in re-
lation to astronomical observing, which was vital for timekeeping (days, months, and years
being defined by the positions of astronomical objects relative to observers on Earth); for
accountancy, to keep records of possessions and for trading; and for surveying land. However
abstraction, the consideration of mathematical concepts such as number, size, and shape
independently of any application, also developed notably in ancient Greece. The idea of
rigorous proof, that new concepts could be firmly and indisputably ascertained by a process
of logical deduction based on previous knowledge, also appeared in ancient Greece. But
the subsequent development of mathematics was not a smooth process of building theory
rigorously on previously established knowledge; rather, concepts were often developed in a
rather intuitive manner, and only much later proved rigorously. For example, the ideas of
differential and integral calculus as originated by Isaac Newton and Gottfried von Leibniz
in the late 17th century and further developed by Leonhard Euler and the Bernoullis in the
18th century were adequate for all applications needed at that time but involved poorly
defined notions of infinitesimal (vanishingly small) changes in quantities. It was not until
the 19th century that rigorous definitions of limit, continuity, convergence, and other no-
tions that form the subject now known to mathematicians as Analysis were developed. All
these notions are founded on the properties of numbers, but was there actually a rigorous
definition of numbers? No; such definitions did not appear until the second half of the 19th
century, in particular in the work of Richard Dedekind who asked as the title of one of his
books, Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen? [What are numbers and what should they be?].
It is the objective of the present book to present a rigorous theory of numbers, not only for
the intrinsic interest of the topic but also as a way into rigorous mathematics for students
who have not previously encountered this approach.

1.2 The Axiomatic Method

We have already referred to the idea of new concepts being based on previous knowledge,
but what is that previous knowledge based on? Clearly there needs to be a starting point.
All mathematical reasoning must ultimately be founded on axioms. Axioms are statements
which are defined to be true; some axioms are statements of what seems to be obvious, others
are definitions of mathematical concepts or objects. In any case, they are the “rules of the
game” which everyone accepts to be true. But we cannot set axioms arbitrarily; they need
to give rise to “useful” mathematics, which relates to our intuitive concepts of number and

1
2 Number Systems: A Path into Rigorous Mathematics

all the other mathematical notions used in applications in natural sciences and many areas
of human activity; and they need to be self-consistent, i.e. they must not allow contradictory
deductions to be made.
Thus the axiomatic method which we adopt proceeds from the axioms by first proving a
theorem based only on the axioms, then proving further theorems which may be based on
previous theorems as well as on the axioms, building a structure of theoretical knowledge
in which everything ultimately rests on the axioms. Some theorems will be described as
lemmas, which are those that are not of much interest in themselves but are needed in order
to prove later theorems, or as corollaries, which are those that follow almost immediately
from the previous theorem.
All axioms, theorems, and any other statements in any mathematical argument are
propositions. A proposition is a statement that can only be true or false, so excludes
self-contradictory statements (for example, “This sentence is false”) and a huge variety of
statements made in ordinary discourse. That is not to say that the truth or falsehood of a
proposition must be known. Indeed there exist propositions in mathematics which are known
to be undecidable: all that is known about such a proposition is that no process of logical
deduction based on the accepted axioms is capable of proving either truth or falsehood.
Below, we sometimes use a single letter P or Q to symbolise a general proposition; we also
occasionally use the somewhat tautological phrase “P is true” for emphasis (it is tautological
because writing, “Paris is in France” is sufficient to indicate the truth of the proposition
that Paris is in France; we don’t write, “ ‘Paris is in France’ is true.”). We shall also use the
phrase, “P is false” for what in the standard notation of logic can be written ¬P (“not P ”).
If a proposition concerns a class of objects, we may write P (x) where x denotes a general
object from the class; for example, if x denotes cities, P (x) might be the proposition, “x is
in France”.

1.3 The Place of Number Systems within Mathematics

The Natural Numbers which we use to count discrete objects are the first mathematical
concept that we encounter as children, so we naturally regard numbers as the most funda-
mental aspect of mathematics. However, the ancient Greeks regarded geometrical concepts
(lines and shapes, with their lengths and angles) as fundamental, whereas modern mathe-
maticians tend to regard the concept of sets as underlying the whole of mathematics. In
particular, our axioms for number systems will be presented in the language of Set Theory.
So, before starting on the axiomatic theory of number systems, we present an informal
review of the required background in Set Theory in Chapter 2; a student who already
has some knowledge of sets, relations and functions and their notation could probably go
straight into Chapter 3 on Natural Numbers, and only refer back to Chapter 2 if and when
they encounter an unfamiliar concept from Set Theory.
A single number system is not sufficient for all purposes. Natural Numbers are fine
for counting objects, but not for accountancy where one may be in credit or debit. The
Integers, which suffice for the latter purpose, cannot deal with dividing objects into equal
parts. So we need fractions (Rational Numbers), but these are not adequate for measuring
quantities that vary continuously (length, weight, etc.). The Real Numbers which suffice
for such measurements are then found not to be capable of providing solutions to perfectly
well-formed equations, so we then define the Complex Numbers.
 Introduction: The Purpose of This Book 3

Leopold Kronecker thought that “Die ganzen Zahlen hat Gott gemacht, alles andere ist
Menschenwerk ” [God made the whole numbers, all else is the work of humansi ]. However,
the approach in this book follows the philosophy of Dedekind, that “Die Zahlen sind freie
Schöpfungen des menschlichen Geistes” [Numbers are free creations of the human mind],
since for each of the five number systems mentioned above we shall write down axioms
which were originally devised by human thinkers. No kind of number is supposed to simply
exist without the need for such axioms to be laid down, although all number systems must
demonstrate utility in describing the natural world and/or facilitating human activity.
Having defined our number systems, what do we do with them? We have mentioned
some practical applications of numbers above, but what is the next step in the process
of building a body of theory by logical deduction? There are various directions that one
can take. Most obvious is Number Theory, which investigates the properties of the Natural
Numbers and the Integers in depth. Secondly, there is Analysis, which deals with functions
of Real Numbers and of Complex Numbers, laying the rigorous foundations for differential
and integral calculus and then extending to consider multi-dimensional spaces. Importantly,
Analysis replaces vague concepts of “infinitely large” or “infinitesimally small” with rigorous
definitions based on the properties of Real Numbers; infinity is not a number, and statements
like “1 ÷ 0 = ∞” have no place in mathematics! Thirdly, the study of arithmetic operations
in number systems yields some of the basic concepts of Abstract Algebra, in which one
investigates the structures arising from operations on sets of objects without reference to the
kind of object in the set. Some of the elementary concepts in all these areas of mathematics
will be discussed in this book where they arise naturally, but readers wishing to investigate
any of these topics in greater depth should find a textbook devoted to the topic.

1.4 Mathematical Writing, Notation, and Terminology

Any mathematical argument, even if written mostly or entirely in symbols, should be
capable of being read as grammatically correct English. Every symbol has a meaning which
can be expressed as a word or words. For example, = means “equals”; and “A = B” can be
read as a simple sentence, “A equals B”. Note here that A and B are names given to some
mathematical objects, so do not need to be expressed in words. We have here assumed an
intuitive notion of equality: two mathematical expressions are equal if and only if they are
representations of the same object. Equality can be defined more formally as an equivalence
relation (see Section 2.3.1).
The symbol := means “defined to be”. So “A := B” (where A and/or B would typically
be mathematical expressions rather than single symbols) defines the expression A to be
equal to the expression B. This is a stronger statement than simply saying that A = B; but
once the definition has been made, it is certainly true that A = B.
The symbol ⇒ means “implies”: if P and Q are propositions, P ⇒ Q (“P implies Q”)
means that Q is a logical consequence of P , and is equivalent to writing, “If P , then Q”.
The symbol ⇔ indicates a two-way implication: P ⇔ Q means that P implies Q and Q
implies P , or equivalently that Q is true if and only if P is true. You must never confuse
⇒ or ⇔ with = : the symbol = appears between mathematical objects, whereas ⇒ and ⇔
can only appear between propositions. If A, B, C, D are mathematical objects, the sentence
i Ganzen Zahlen (literally, “whole numbers”) is sometimes translated as “integers”; but would God have

created anything as abhorrent as negative numbers? It is probably better to translate the phrase as “natural
numbers”.
4 Number Systems: A Path into Rigorous Mathematics

A = B ⇒ C = D does make sense: “A = B” is a proposition, as is “C = D”, and

the sentence asserts that if the former proposition is true, then the latter is also true.
But “A ⇒ B” does not make sense. The symbol ∴ (“therefore”) essentially means the
same as ⇒ (“implies”), and many authors eschew the former; however, if one is reading a
mathematical argument as an English sentence, there are situations where the conjunction
“therefore” seems more grammatically correct than the verb “implies”, and so both symbols
appear in this book.
A forward slash / through any symbol is used to indicate the negation of the meaning
of the symbol. For example, 6= for “is not equal to”, 6⇒ for “does not imply”. However, to
negate a proposition we use ¬; so ¬P , means “not P ”, or “P is false”.
The meaning of “and” is clear, but “or” is more problematic. “P and Q” means that
both propositions P and Q are true (in normal usage and in mathematics), whereas “P or
Q” can have different meanings in normal usage. In mathematics, at least in this book, it
will always mean the inclusive “or”, i.e. that any of the following may be true: P but not
Q; Q but not P ; both P and Q.
The delimiters [ ], { } and ( ) are all often informally referred to as brackets; but strictly [ ]
are brackets, { } are braces and ( ) are parentheses. In many situations, each of them has
a particular meaning and they must not be confused; for example, see the notation described
below for sets, ordered sets and equivalence classes. However, in other situations, especially
in arithmetical calculations, they are used to indicate the order in which operations are
to be done (with the material within a set of delimiters being evaluated before combining
the result of that evaluation with objects outside the delimiters). In that case, any of the
delimiters may be used, although the first choice is usually parentheses, with the other
delimiters only being introduced if an expression requires multiple delimiters.

1.5 Logic and Methods of Proof

We do not require a detailed discussion of formal logic, but there are a few concepts
that are important to understand.
Often a “direct proof” is possible, starting from known propositions and finishing with
the proposition that is to be proved, using a sequence of steps (see Section 2.3.3 on Tran-
sitivity and Proofs for a justification of using a sequence of steps). However, there are also
many cases where indirect methods are better.
Proof by contradiction involves starting with the negation of the proposition to be
proved. A logical argument based on this negated proposition is then pursued, ultimately
leading to a proposition that contradicts some known truth or contradicts the negated
proposition that was assumed at the start. Since the argument has been logical, the only
possible source of the contradiction is the original negated proposition. So the negated
proposition cannot be true, and hence the original proposition must be true.
Sometimes a statement of the form P ⇒ Q is most easily proved via its contrapositive.
We first need to distinguish between contrapositive and converse.
Let P and Q be propositions, and suppose that P ⇒ Q: if P is true, then Q is true. The
converse of P ⇒ Q is the statement Q ⇒ P ; if both P ⇒ Q and Q ⇒ P , we have P ⇔ Q.
Indeed, to prove that P ⇔ Q, we usually need to do a two-stage proof, first demonstrating
an implication P ⇒ Q and then demonstrating the converse implication, Q ⇒ P .
On the other hand, the statement ¬Q ⇒ ¬P (“not Q implies not P ”, or more clearly,
“if Q is false, then P is false”), is the contrapositive of P ⇒ Q. The contrapositive is
 Introduction: The Purpose of This Book 5

logically equivalent to the original statement. This last sentence is itself an “if and only if”
statement: it is saying that if ¬Q ⇒ ¬P , then P ⇒ Q, and also (the converse) if P ⇒ Q,
then ¬Q ⇒ ¬P . To verify this, first suppose that ¬Q ⇒ ¬P , i.e. P being false is a logical
consequence of Q being false; then P cannot be true if Q is false; so if P is true, then
Q cannot be false, i.e. Q must be true. For the converse, suppose that P ⇒ Q: if P is
true, then so is Q; thus P could not have been true if Q is found to be false, i.e. Q being
false implies that P was false. The practical implication is that if it is easier to prove a
contrapositive statement than the statement as originally framed, that suffices to prove the
original statement.
An example to illustrate these ideas: consider the statement, “All cats are black”, which
can be clarified as “If an object is a cat, then that object is black”. The converse is: “if an
object is black, then it is a cat”. Clearly saying that “All cats are black” does not eliminate
the possibility of a dog being black: the original statement is not equivalent to the converse.
But the contrapositive is: “if an object is not black, then it is not a cat”. If you know that
all cats are black, and you find a non-black object, you can be certain that it is not a cat:
the original statement has implied the contrapositive.
When proving a proposition about a class of object (for example, all numbers in a number
system), it is important to note that any proof must be completely general; showing the
proposition to be true for some example(s) taken from the class of object is not sufficient.
On the other hand, it is only necessary to find a single object in that class which does
not satisfy the proposition in order to prove the proposition to be false; such an object is
a counterexample to the proposition. Finding a single white cat proves the proposition
that “All cats are black” to be false; whereas finding any number of black cats (examples
satisfying the proposition) would not prove it to be true – unless you were certain that
you had found every cat in existence. That would be a proof by exhaustion, where each
member of a class of objects is verified to satisfy a proposition; not often a practical method,
although sometimes a large class of objects may be split into sub-classes, and the “proof by
exhaustion” involves examining whether each sub-class satisfies the proposition.
If you want to fully understand a proof, you will need to put in a certain amount of
effort. It is recommended that you use the “self-explanation” strategy set down by Lara
Alcock, Mark Hodds, and Matthew Inglis: their guidance notes, “How to read proofs: the
self-explanation strategy” are reproduced as Appendix A at the back of this book. The
strategy essentially involves ensuring that you fully understand the reasoning in each step
of the proof before proceeding to the next line. There is nothing new or revolutionary about
this: it is what successful mathematicians have been doing for centuries; but the great
insight of Alcock, Hodds, and Inglis was to realise that it is not something that students of
mathematics automatically know how to do when they first meet the rigorous development
of theory by the axiomatic method; hence the need for guidance notes. To help you in your
self-explanation as you read this book, a reason will often be stated for each step in a proof;
the reasons will be in italics in brackets.
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