empiricist philosophers, such as Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, had convinced some

mathematicians, such as Gauss, that there is no infinite in mathematics. thanks to

Georg Cantor (), however, almost every mathematician now accept the infinite.
Cantor single-handedly produced a clear and complete theory of the infinite that
answers all the objections previously raised by anti-infinity philosophers, and which
has become the basis of contemporary mathematics. Thanks to Cantor, we have a
new and deeperunderstanding of real numbers an got the many branches of
mathematics such as calculus, which presuppose them.
Because of the anti-infinity attitude of L. Kronecker and others, Cantor never
obtained a position at a good university. In his own day many people rejected his
theory, ang, in 1884, he had a mental breakdown from which he never fully
recovered, dying in a psychiatric clinic in Halle, Germany.
History, however, has judged Cantor to be one of the most original and important
mathematicians of all time. The opening sentence in Michael Halletts Cantorian Set
Theory and Limitation of Size is not exaggeration:
Cantor was the founder of the mathematical theory of the infinite, and so one might
with justice all him the founder of modern mathematics.
Cantor believed in an infinite God ang in infinite sets of numbers. For Cantor, the
latter belief was justified by the former. Cantor wrote:
Since God is of the highest perfection one can conclude that it is possible for Him to
create a transfinitum ordinatum ( realm of the infinite ). Therefore, in virtue of His
pure goodness and majesty we can conclude that there actually is a created
transfinitum.
Here Cantor invoked Augustines principle of plenitude, which states that God
creates every possible good thing.
Cantors beliaf in God led him to the correct beliaf that not every collection of
abstract objects is itselt eligible as a member of a collection. Cantorbelieved this
because he believed that the collection consisting of everything is divine, and
devine in such a way that it is overqualified to be a member in what would be a
higher collection. Some of the early workers in set theiry, such as etheist Bertrand
Russell (), originally thought no such restriction was necessary. They espoused what
is now called the nave view that any collection is eligible for membership in any
collection. A collection could even be a member of itself. This led them into a
contradiction, discovered by Russell, called the Russell paradox:
Let C be the collection such that, for any collection X, X is a member of C just in
case X is not a member of X. then is a member of C just in case C is not a member
of C.

A similar thing happened in the case of the well ordering principle, an axion
equivalent to the axiom of choice. Cantor adopted it because he believed there is a
God who can arrange the elements of any set so that they are well-ordered. As it
was discovered later, the well ordering principle plays a key role in many branches
of mathematics. Cantors faith in God guided him in the right direction.
One of Cantors striking result is that there is an infinite hierarchy of distinct
infinites, each infinitely greater than those below it. The medieval had noted that
the number of points in a large circle is the same as thet in a small concentric circle,
in the sense that each radius of the large circle passes through exactly one point of
each circle. Similar observations led Bernhard Bolzano () and others to the
conclusion that any two infinite sets are equal because they can be linked by a
one-to-one correspondence. In 1873 Cantor discovered that this is wrong. One of
this proofs goes as follows.
Let A be an infinite set (that is, one containing intinitely many members). Let P(A)
be the set of subsets of A. suppose that A and P(A) are linked by a one-to-one
correspondence f : A> P(A. let S be the set of members x of A such that x is not a
member of f(x). then S is in P(A), and there is some y in A such that S = f(y).
If y E S = f(y) then, by the defining property of S, y is not a member of f(y).
however, if y is not a member of f(y) = , then, by the definition of S, it is a member
of S. Contradiction. Hence A and P(A) are not linked by a one-to-one
correspondence.
Since, for every member x of A, P(A) has (x) as a member, there is a copy of A that
is a subset of P(A). hence A is smaller than P(A), and we can write A< P(A). similarly,
P(A)<P(PA). indeed, we have an infinite hierarchy of infinite sets, each more infinite
than the previous ones:
A<PA
Result like this incurred the scron of Kronecker.
Cantor raised the following question. If A is the set of positive integers, we know
that A<P, but is there some set B such that A<B ang B<PA? Cantor conjectured that
the answer is no, and it is this conjecture that is called the continuum hypothesis.
It has been proved, by Kurt Gobel and Paul Cohen, that neither the continuum
hypothesis nor its negation follows from the basic axioms of set theory, and no one
has yet been able to produce a not-so-basic axiom that would yield a convincing
answer to Cantors question. The continuum hypothesis is the parallel postulate of
set theory.
Cantor was a Christian. In a letter to C.Hermite, Cantor writes about his failure ti get
a decent job:

I thanks God, the all-wise ang all-good, that He always denied me the fulfillment of
this whish (for a good position), for He thereby constrained me, through a deeper
penetration into theology, to serve Him and His Holy Roman Catholic Church better
than I have been able with my exclusive Preoccupation with mathematics.
One of Cantors last compositions was a love poem to his wife, Vally Guttmann. After
forty years of marriage, Cantor talk about
The love you gave me my good wife,
You cared for me so well.