Speaker:

Sara Hassan Kamel

Teaching Assistant Engineering Mathematics Dept.

The Concept of Infinity

How would YOU describe INFINITY?

The number of sand grains?

Nope!

The Universe perhaps?

Maybe!

Time?

The number of points on a straight line

The number of harmonics needed to represent a square function exactly?

The Story of Infinity

The Ancient Greeks

Greece (600 B.C.)

The Greeks were the first to acknowledge

the notion of infinity. There is no smallest among the small and no largest among the large; but always something still smaller and something still larger. Anaxagorus (500 428 B.C) Although the Greeks acknowledged the infinite, they could not confront it! It brought about

horror infiniti

Zenos Paradox
Zeno argued that: Motion is impossible! How so?

If an object moves in a straight line

from point 0 to point A, then it must first reach A/2. But before it can reach A/2, it must first reach A/4. Ad infinitum.
Latin for: to infinity

Zeno of Elea 490 430 B.C.

Zenos Paradox

1/4

1/2

1/8

Zenos Paradox

Heres another perception of the paradox:

Zenos Paradox
The Greeks failed to resolve the paradox. They regarded the limit process 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + . = 1 as a potentially infinite process. There are two kinds of infinite:

Potential Infinite: Something that could

continue on, were effort to be applied. Actual Infinite: Something that is actually infinite in extent. Like the set {1,2,3,} which actually contains an infinite number of digits.

Zenos Paradox

The Greeks could not accept the existence of an actual infinite. The infinite has potential existenceThere will not be an actual infinite - Aristotle

The Symbol of Infinity

John Wallis (1616 1703)

English Mathematician

Introduced the symbol

for infinity in his book De sectionibus conicis The symbol is said to be derived from the Etruscan symbol for 1000, sometimes used to mean many.

Georg Cantor (1845 1918)

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia Moved to Germany in 1865 University of Berlin

Studied with Weierstrass, Kronecker

and others. Graduated in 1867 with a doctorate in Number Theory

Worked as a Math teacher in a girls school in 1869

Georg Cantor (1845 1918)

1869:
Appointed a position at the University of

Halle

1873:
Promoted to Extraordinary Professor Started his work on Infinity Communicated with Richard Dedekind

1874:
Married Vally Guttmann

Spent part of his honeymoon in Switzerland discussing

mathematics with Dedekind

Cantors work on Infinity

Cantor discovered that there wasnt just one infinity, but many infinities!
1 2 3 4 5 . . . .
. . . . 10 20 30 40 50 . . . .
So although the set {10, 20, 30,} seems smaller, both sets are infinitely the SAME SIZE

Cantors work on Infinity

What about the set of fractions? Is it the same size or larger?

Cantors Set Theory

Unlike other areas of mathematics, the Set Theory did not evolve through the ideas of many mathematicians, but is the creation of one man alone: Cantor!

Cantors Set Theory

Cantor was the first to mathematically prove that the set of Real Numbers was larger than any other countable set (like the Natural Numbers). The question that Cantor was unable to answer, was whether there was a set whose size was in between these two The Continuum Hypothesis

Cantors Struggle

Cantors work received harsh criticism from his contemporaries.

Poincar: Grave disease!
Kronecker: Corruption of youth!
Kronecker Weyl Poincar Wittgenstein

Cantors Struggle
Cantor eventually fell into depression. He spent time at Halle Universitys sanatorium.

Cantors Commemoration

Cantor was awarded the Sylvester Medal by the Royal Society

Cantors Commemoration

David Hilbert defended Cantor from his critics saying:

"No one shall expel us from the Paradise that Cantor has created."

Gerhard Geyers Science Cube Monument

Placed on the Eastern side of Nietlebener St., Halle, Germany Each side of the cube features one of four famous scientists:

Friedrich August Wolf

Georg Cantor
Georg Ernst Stahl

Victor Klemperer

Gerhard Geyers Monument (Cantors Side)

Gerhard Geyers Monument

A World Without Infinity

Uses of Infinity (to name a few):

Sometimes infinite result of a physical quantity may point out the limitations of a certain theory. Many approximations, equations use infinite series. Infinitesimal Calculus (Leibniz & Newton)

Differentiation &

Integration!

Cosmology

Black Hole:
A point of zero volume,

hence infinite density.

They are invisible, but

detected by the effect of gravity on the stars and gases around the black hole.

References
An Episodic History of Mathematics, Mathematical Culture through Problem Solving by Steven G. Krantz, 2006 To Infinity and Beyond, A Cultural History of the Infinite by Eli Maor, 1987

The Story of Maths, BBC Series presented by Prof. Marcus de Sautoy