[FOM] John Baez on David Corfield's book

[Charles Parsons]

At 5:09 PM -0400 9/29/03, Stephen G Simpson wrote:
>
>
>Another example is the history of the acceptance of the rigorous
>concept of real numbers as Dedekind cuts, pioneered by Dedekind's
>f.o.m. research as reported in his monograph `Was sind und was sollen
>die Zahlen.'
>
>Don't you agree?
>

Steve,

As you may be aware by now, you've made a slip here. The Dedekind cut 
treatment of the real numbers is in Dedekind's earlier essay, 
_Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen_, published in 1872. _Was sind_, 
which deals with the natural numbers, appeared in 1888. As Dedekind 
says, the ideas of both date from some time before their publication.

Charles Parsons
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