John told me once that the whole idea of ISM AND ITS PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS is based on a mathematical field called “Set Theory.” His comment (on which I placed little notice at the time) was clearly brought back to me this week when some dapper young man was explaining to a television reporter his project to help solve either Arkansas health care problems, or maybe the educational problemsin Arkansas connected with that “Common Core” squabble and the general inferiority of Arkansas education ( I don’t remember which topic he was discussing, frankly, I was busy doing my back exercises. I remember he was youngish had light auburn hair parted neatly on the side and swept over the top). The young man kept saying that he, with his consulting team, is considering the “PROBLEM SET” AND THAT THE ENTIRE “PROBLEM SET” WAS BEING HANDLED. He seemed to fondle the term "problem set", as if he knew all about it and perhaps invented it! He did not.
I remember John talking about problem sets frequently, probably before the dapper young consultant was born. Since the seventies John had repeatedly urged students to think in terms of “problem sets” to never consider a problem of any kind as an individual unit.
So just for fun this morning I decided to Google the words "problem set." I learned it is a term used in ACCOUNTING! Also, I discovered “problem set” is a term described in International Encyclopedia of Systems, from which this article is copied. (International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics,, p. 469. Edited by Charles François, published by K.G. Sauer Verlag GmbH, Munich, 2004 (Springer-Verlag) https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3110968010).
A copy of the encyclopedia article is on my computer in filename “Problem Set Article” John did not write the article, but contributed information for it, which was edited by Charles Francois. There were possibly other contributors, too. I don’t know who. I do remember John talking many times about helping Charles Francois with his Encyclopedia.
See also John's Festschrift written for Francois.
R.w. Sept 23, 2015.
