Whatever happened to set theory?

摘要

On October 4, 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. It was about the size of a beach ball and had four radio antennas sticking out of it that looked like the antennas on your car. It sent signals to earth until October 22, 1957, when its transmitter batteries ran out. It burned to a crisp while falling out of the sky on January 4,1958. Although Sputnik was short-lived, it set off an international skirmish called the Space Race, in which the United States and the USSR tried to out-launch and out-science each other. The United States figured that since the Russians were ahead of us, our children must be undereducated. So an effort was mounted to improve the U.S. elementary school curriculum.