CHAPTER I — ONE-TO-ONE CORRESPONDENCE

1.  Definition of one-to-one correspondence. Given any two sets of individuals, if it is possible to set up such a correspondence between the two sets that to any individual in one set corresponds one and only one individual in the other, then the two sets are said to be in one-to-one correspondence with each other.  This notion, simple as it is, is of fundamental importance in all branches of science.  The process of counting is nothing but a setting up of a one-to-one correspondence between the objects to be counted and certain words, ‘one,’ ‘two,’ ‘three,’ etc., in the mind.  Many savage peoples have discovered no better method of counting than by setting up a one-to-one correspondence between the objects to be counted and their fingers.  The scientist who busies himself with naming and classifying the objects of nature is only setting up a one-to-one correspondence between the objects and certain words which serve, not as a means of counting the objects, but of listing them in a convenient way.  Thus he may be able to marshal and array his material in such a way as to bring to light relations that may exist between the objects themselves.  Indeed, the whole notion of language springs from this idea of one-to-one correspondence.

2.  Consequences of one-to-one correspondence. The most useful and interesting problem that may arise in connection with any one-to-one correspondence is to determine just what relations existing between the individuals of one assemblage may be carried over to another assemblage in one-to-one correspondence with it.  It is a favorite error to assume that whatever holds for one set must also hold for the other.  Magicians are apt to assign magic properties to many of the words and symbols which they are in the habit of using, and scientists are constantly confusing objective things with the subjective formulas for them.  After the physicist has set up correspondences between physical facts and mathematical formulas, the “interpretation” of these formulas is his most important and difficult task.

3. In mathematics, effort is constantly being made to set up one-to-one correspondences between simple notions and more complicated ones, or between the well-explored fields of research and fields less known.  Thus, by means of the mechanism employed in analytic geometry, algebraic theorems are made to yield geometric ones, and vice versa.  In geometry we get at the properties of the conic sections by means of the properties of the straight line, and cubic surfaces are studied by means of the plane.

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