> From: nate_1729
> Subject: Re: Sectionals questions
>
> I think Jordan's right here. Given the set-theoretic underpinnings
> of, well, just about everything, the concept of surjectivity has to
> be one of the N most important concepts in math.
>
> Indeed, surjectivity is an excellent example of an important concept
> that is highly accessible to those without specialized training --
> look at various pigeon-hole arguments for examples of elementary and
> elegant proofs that use only basic (and intuitive) set theory.
>
> It's laughable to suggest that surjectivity is too specialized, when
> Zorn's lemma and Russell's paradox, just to name two, are asked
> frequently -- both of those are (when studied rigorously)
> exponentially less accessible to the non-specialist.
I'll just say that, as one data point, I don't know what any of these (surjectivity, Zorn's lemma, or Russell's paradox) mean. It is true that my last formal math class was in 1991, so I've no doubt forgotten a lot that I haven't used in grad school or later research or teaching, but none of them really ring a bell.
Doug