The Roles of Set Theories in Mathematics
Colin McLarty · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2018
What mathematicians know and use about sets varies across branches of mathematics but rarely includes such fundamental aspects of Zermelo–Fraenkel (ZF) set theory as the iterative hierarchy. All mathematicians know and use the axioms of the Elementary Theory of the Category of Sets (ETCS), though few know ETCS or any set theory by name. The chapter depicts the iterative hierarchy of ZF and constructibility as gauge theories. Since gauge theories are prominently used in physics, so these are used in work on the continuum hypothesis, large cardinals, and provability in arithmetic. But mathematicians outside logic avoid these gauges and work with structures only up to isomorphism, as does ETCS.