Georg Cantor Quotes


What I assert and believe to have demonstrated in this and earlier works is that following the finite there is a transfinite (which one could also call the supra-finite), that is an unbounded ascending lader of definite modes, which by their nature are not finite but infinite, but which just like the finite can be determined by well-defined and distinguishable numbers.


Citations

Cantor, Georg. Foundations of a General Theory of Manifolds: A Mathematico-Philosophical Investigation into the Theory of the Infinite. B. G. Teubner, 1883. Printed in Georg Cantor Gesammelte Abhandlungen mathematischen und philosophischen Inhalts, edited by Ernst Zermelo, Julius Springer, 1932, p. 190.

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Georg Cantor
Georg Cantor
  • Born: March 3, 1845
  • Died: January 6, 1918
  • Nationality: German
  • Profession: Mathematician

Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was a German mathematician. He created set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. In fact, Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of.