The Man Who Stole Infinity
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The Man Who Stole Infinity
In an 1874 paper, Georg Cantor proved that there are different sizes of infinity and changed math forever. A trove of newly unearthed letters shows that it was also an act of plagiarism.
By Joseph Howlett
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-stole-infinity-20260225/
Cantor at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/34168Cantor in Principia Mathematica:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78050
-
The Man Who Stole Infinity
In an 1874 paper, Georg Cantor proved that there are different sizes of infinity and changed math forever. A trove of newly unearthed letters shows that it was also an act of plagiarism.
By Joseph Howlett
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-stole-infinity-20260225/
Cantor at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/34168Cantor in Principia Mathematica:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78050@gutenberg_org
Except no, it wasn't a proof to begin with, anymore than had Cantor written 1+1=3 and claimed that "proved" 1+1=3
https://dotnet.social/@SmartmanApps/115642725878742794 -
@gutenberg_org
Except no, it wasn't a proof to begin with, anymore than had Cantor written 1+1=3 and claimed that "proved" 1+1=3
https://dotnet.social/@SmartmanApps/115642725878742794Maybe a silly idea, but I often think that when a software developer uses "infinite" they are often refer to "unlimited", as in no limit.
A simple example "find closest object" using a ray where the initial ray has an unlimited range, but the code will use something like `Double.Infinite`.
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Maybe a silly idea, but I often think that when a software developer uses "infinite" they are often refer to "unlimited", as in no limit.
A simple example "find closest object" using a ray where the initial ray has an unlimited range, but the code will use something like `Double.Infinite`.
Due to hardware, "real numbers" in computer science is a finite set. At least txo elements in this set encode "infinity" and aritmetic operators act accordingly.
For more information, see :
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
