"The theory is systematically developed by the axiomatic method that has, since von Neumann, dominated the general approach to linear functional analysis and that achieves here a high degree of lucidity and clarity. The presentation is never awkward or dry, as it sometimes is in other "modern" textbooks; it is as unconventional as one has come to expect from the author. The book contains about 350 well placed and instructive problems, which cover a considerable part of the subject. All in all this is an excellent work, of equally high value for both student and teacher". Zentralblatt fuer Mathematik

From the Preface: "This book was written for the active reader. The first part consists of problems, frequently preceded by definitions and motivation, and sometimes followed by corollaries and historical remarks... The second part, a very short one, consists of hints... The third part, the longest, consists of solutions: proofs, answers, or contructions, depending on the nature of the problem....

This is not an introduction to Hilbert space theory. Some knowledge of that subject is a prerequisite: at the very least, a study of the elements of Hilbert space theory should proceed concurrently with the reading of this book."

Every mathematician agrees that every mathematician must know some set theory; the disagreement begins in trying to decide how much is some. This book contains my answer to that question. The purpose of the book is to tell the beginning student of advanced mathematics the basic set theoretic facts of life, and to do so with the minimum of philosophical discourse and logical formalism. The point of view throughout is that of a prospective mathematician anxious to study groups, or integrals, or manifolds. From this point of view the concepts and methods of this book are merely some of the standard mathematical tools; the expert specialist will find nothing new here. Scholarly bibliographical credits and references are out of place in a purely expository book such as this one. The student who gets interested in set theory for its own sake should know, however, that there is much more to the subject than there is in this book. One of the most beautiful sources of set-theoretic wisdom is still Hausdorff's Set theory. A recent and highly readable addition to the literature, with an extensive and up-to-date bibliography, is Axiomatic set theory by Suppes.

This volume and its companion present a selection of the mathematical writings of P. R. Halmos. The present volume consists of research publications plus two papers which, although of a more expository nature, were deemed primarily of interest to the specialist ("Ten Problems in Hilbert Space" (1970d), and" Ten Years in Hilbert Space" (1979b)). The remaining expository and all the popular writings are in the second volume. The papers in the present volume are arranged chronologically. As it happens, that arrangement also groups the papers according to subject matter: those published before 1950 deal with probability and measure theory, those after 1950 with operator theory. A series of papers from the mid 1950's on algebraic logic is excluded; the papers were republished by Chelsea (New York) in 1962 under the title" Algebraic Logic." This volume contains two introductory essays, one by Nathaniel Friedman on Halmos's work in ergodic theory, one by Donald Sarason on Halmos's work in operator theory. There is an essay by Leonard Gillman on Halmos's expository and popular writings in the second volume. The editors wish to express their thanks to the staff of Springer-Verlag. They are grateful also for the help of the following people: C. Apostol, W. B. Arveson, R. G. Douglas, C. Pearcy, S. Popa, P. Rosenthal, A. L. Shields, D. Voiculescu, S. Walsh. Berkeley, CA Donald E. Sarason vii WORK IN OPERATOR THEORY P. R. Halmos's first papers on Hilbert space operators appeared in 1950.

A selection of the mathematical writings of Paul R. Halmos (1916 - 2006) is presented in two Volumes. Volume I consists of research publications plus two papers of a more expository nature on Hilbert Space. The remaining expository articles and all the popular writings appear in this second volume. It comprises 27 articles, written between 1949 and 1981, and also a transcript of an interview.

The subject. The phrase "integral operator" (like some other mathematically informal phrases, such as "effective procedure" and "geometric construction") is sometimes defined and sometimes not. When it is defined, the definition is likely to vary from author to author. While the definition almost always involves an integral, most of its other features can vary quite considerably. Superimposed limiting operations may enter (such as L2 limits in the theory of Fourier transforms and principal values in the theory of singular integrals), IJ' spaces and abstract Banach spaces may intervene, a scalar may be added (as in the theory of the so-called integral operators of the second kind), or, more generally, a multiplication operator may be added (as in the theory of the so-called integral operators of the third kind). The definition used in this book is the most special of all. According to it an integral operator is the natural "continuous" generali zation of the operators induced by matrices, and the only integrals that appear are the familiar Lebesgue-Stieltjes integrals on classical non-pathological mea sure spaces. The category. Some of the flavor of the theory can be perceived in finite dimensional linear algebra. Matrices are sometimes considered to be an un natural and notationally inelegant way of looking at linear transformations. From the point of view of this book that judgement misses something."

From the reviews: "The theory is systematically developed by the axiomatic method that has, since von Neumann, dominated the general approach to linear functional analysis and that achieves here a high degree of lucidity and clarity....The book contains about 350 well placed and instructive problems, which cover a considerable part of the subject. All in all this is an excellent work, of equally high value for both student and teacher." --ZENTRALBLATT FUER MATHEMATIK

This book contains four essays on expository writing of books and papers at the research level and at the level of graduate texts. The authors were the four members of the AMS Committee on Expository Writing.

IN 1959 I lectured on Boolean algebras at the University of Chicago. A mimeographed version of the notes on which the lectures were based circulated for about two years; this volume contains those notes, corrected and revised. Most of the corrections were suggested by Peter Crawley. To judge by his detailed and precise suggestions, he must have read every word, checked every reference, and weighed every argument, and I am lIery grateful to hirn for his help. This is not to say that he is to be held responsible for the imperfec tions that remain, and, in particular, I alone am responsible for all expressions of personal opinion and irreverent view point. P. R. H. Ann Arbor, Michigan ] anuary, 1963 Contents Section Page 1 1 Boolean rings ............................ . 2 Boolean algebras ......................... . 3 9 3 Fields of sets ............................ . 4 Regular open sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . 5 Elementary relations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 . . . . . 6 Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . 7 Infinite operations. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 . . . . . 8 Subalgebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 31 . . . . . . 9 Homomorphisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 . . . . . . . 10 Free algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 . . . . . . . 11 Ideals and filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 . . . . . . 12 The homomorphism theorem. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 52 . . 13 Boolean a-algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 . . . . . . 14 The countable chain condition . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 . . . 15 Measure algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 . . . . . . . 16 Atoms.. . . . .. . . . . .. .. . . . ... . . . . .. . . ... . . .. 69 17 Boolean spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 . . . . . . . 18 The representation theorem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 . . . 19 Duali ty for ideals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 81 . . . . . 20 Duality for homomorphisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 . . . . 21 Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 . . . . . . . . 22 Boolean a-spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 97 . . . . . 23 The representation of a-algebras . . . . . . . . .. . . 100 . 24 Boolean measure spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 104 . . . 25 Incomplete algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 109 . . . . . 26 Products of algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 115 . . . . 27 Sums of algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 119 . . . . . 28 Isomorphisms of factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 122 . . ."

Every mathematician agrees that every mathematician must know some set theory; the disagreement begins in trying to decide how much is some. This book contains my answer to that question. The purpose of the book is to tell the beginning student of advanced mathematics the basic set theoretic facts of life, and to do so with the minimum of philosophical discourse and logical formalism. The point of view throughout is that of a prospective mathematician anxious to study groups, or integrals, or manifolds. From this point of view the concepts and methods of this book are merely some of the standard mathematical tools; the expert specialist will find nothing new here. Scholarly bibliographical credits and references are out of place in a purely expository book such as this one. The student who gets interested in set theory for its own sake should know, however, that there is much more to the subject than there is in this book. One of the most beautiful sources of set-theoretic wisdom is still Hausdorff's Set theory. A recent and highly readable addition to the literature, with an extensive and up-to-date bibliography, is Axiomatic set theory by Suppes."