>
> What concerns me is that the present ordinal-based development is very 
> close to textbooks (most textbooks I think, although I'm not sure), with 
> detailed references to Takeuti-Zaring in particular that match the textbook 
> almost exactly. 
>


This point must be emphasized. For instance by a detailed paragraph in the 
first theorem of the series and a note saying that a combined use of the 
formal proofs in set. mm and the explanations in Takeuti-Zaring would be 
very valuable pedagogical material. Proofs that are very close to a 
textbook are more  suitable for beginners than the others. But attention 
should be drawn to this pecularity. A  table of contents enumerating the 
proofs in the series and a short description of each one might help too.

This kind of material -- close to the book -- might easily be set up for 
Euclid's books, featuring Euclid's original text, Aitken's handouts and 
Byrne's intuitive edition with diagrams. It  would also constitute a very 
valuable material. We would have (in an international language) a full 
collection of texts connecting the original source, an intuitive 
presentation (Byrne), an accurate, modern and completely rigorous 
formulation (Aitken) and the final symbolic formalization. If we add a 
table with references to these texts put side by side, it would be the 
perfect tool for those who want to read Euclid and understand where the 
text is great and where it is inadequate. 

It would not be a repeat of Tarski's system. The treatise describing it is 
in German and thereby perfectly out of reach for the vast majority of 
inhabitants of this planet. And anyway Tarski's system is not the original 
system, it's a modern one. People are more comfortable with Euclid's 
system. It's the official definition of an euclidean plane, the definition 
of reference so to speak. And it might be used to show the equivalence of 
the reference definition with Tarski's system.  It would also be a pity not 
to use Aitken's very interesting work. 

-- 
FL

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