5.2

1. What was the most difficult part of the reading for you?
I think the author knew that this would be confusing, because he kept talking about how it was difficult to grasp, but I don't really understand the significance (or even the idea) behind of having the subsets within the  rings.... or whatever that was. The stuff explained in the example on page 126. It made me laugh because he kept saying, "You know, just like that one example on page 126" like that would make the world better or whatever. I still don't really get it.

2. So.....what does it mean? That example that is...
The best that I can imagine is that 0,1  (as opposed to [0],[1])  is closed under addition and multiplication and probably subtraction, so I guess that is why that is a subset. But.... who cares? I don't get it. I'm just not sure if it matters that they only be 0 and 1 or if the subset may also contain another non-0 and non-1 element.... I just don't know. I think I just don't get it because I'm not sure why it even matters. But hopefully we'll see why later.