The primary purpose of this thesis is to give a substantial generalization of the set of integers Z, where particular emphasis is given to number theoretic questions such as that of unique factorization. The origin of the thesis came from a study of a special case of generalized integers called the Gaussian Integers, namely the set of all complex numbers in the form n + mi, for m,n in Z. The main generalization involves what are called algebraic integers.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the idea of topological "connectedness" by presenting some of the basic ideas concerning connectedness along with several related concepts.