Set theory is seen as the foundation from which virtually all of mathematics can be derived. For example, structures in abstract algebra, such as groups, fields and rings, are sets closed under one or more operations.
One of the main applications of naive set theory is constructing relations. A relation from a domain A to a codomain B is a subset of the Cartesian product A × B. Given this concept, we are quick to see that the set F of all ordered pairs (x, x2), where x is real, is quite familiar. It has a domain set R and a codomain set that is also R, because the set of all squares is subset of the set of all reals. If placed in functional notation, this relation becomes f(x) = x2. The reason these two are equivalent is for any given value, y that the function is defined for, its corresponding ordered pair, (y, y2) is a member of the set F.