A Brief History of Infinity

A Brief History of Infinity

PDF A Brief History of Infinity Download

  • Author: Brian Clegg
  • Publisher: Robinson
  • ISBN: 1472107640
  • Category : Mathematics
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 185

'Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.' Douglas Adams, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy We human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren. Exploring the infinite is a journey into paradox. Here is a quantity that turns arithmetic on its head, making it feasible that 1 = 0. Here is a concept that enables us to cram as many extra guests as we like into an already full hotel. Most bizarrely of all, it is quite easy to show that there must be something bigger than infinity - when it surely should be the biggest thing that could possibly be. Brian Clegg takes us on a fascinating tour of that borderland between the extremely large and the ultimate that takes us from Archimedes, counting the grains of sand that would fill the universe, to the latest theories on the physical reality of the infinite. Full of unexpected delights, whether St Augustine contemplating the nature of creation, Newton and Leibniz battling over ownership of calculus, or Cantor struggling to publicise his vision of the transfinite, infinity's fascination is in the way it brings together the everyday and the extraordinary, prosaic daily life and the esoteric. Whether your interest in infinity is mathematical, philosophical, spiritual or just plain curious, this accessible book offers a stimulating and entertaining read.


A Brief History of Infinity

A Brief History of Infinity

PDF A Brief History of Infinity Download

  • Author: Paolo Zellini
  • Publisher: Penguin Global
  • ISBN:
  • Category : Mathematics
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 212

In A Brief History of Infinity, the infinite in all its forms - viewed from the perspective of mathematicians, philosophers, and theologians - is explored, as Zellini strives to explain this fundamental principle. What is the difference between trueand false infinity? How might we explain away the puzzle of Zeno's paradox? And how is the concept of infinity helping us as we wrestle with the fundamental uncertainties of the quantum world? Paolo Zellini shows that the concept of the infinite is a multifaceted one, and eloquently demonstrates the manner in which humanity has attempted to comprehend that concept for millenia.


Naming Infinity

Naming Infinity

PDF Naming Infinity Download

  • Author: Loren Graham
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • ISBN: 0674032934
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 252

In 1913, Russian imperial marines stormed an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Athos, Greece, to haul off monks engaged in a dangerously heretical practice known as Name Worshipping. Exiled to remote Russian outposts, the monks and their mystical movement went underground. Ultimately, they came across Russian intellectuals who embraced Name Worshipping—and who would achieve one of the biggest mathematical breakthroughs of the twentieth century, going beyond recent French achievements. Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor take us on an exciting mathematical mystery tour as they unravel a bizarre tale of political struggles, psychological crises, sexual complexities, and ethical dilemmas. At the core of this book is the contest between French and Russian mathematicians who sought new answers to one of the oldest puzzles in math: the nature of infinity. The French school chased rationalist solutions. The Russian mathematicians, notably Dmitri Egorov and Nikolai Luzin—who founded the famous Moscow School of Mathematics—were inspired by mystical insights attained during Name Worshipping. Their religious practice appears to have opened to them visions into the infinite—and led to the founding of descriptive set theory. The men and women of the leading French and Russian mathematical schools are central characters in this absorbing tale that could not be told until now. Naming Infinity is a poignant human interest story that raises provocative questions about science and religion, intuition and creativity.


The Beginning of Infinity

The Beginning of Infinity

PDF The Beginning of Infinity Download

  • Author: David Deutsch
  • Publisher: Penguin UK
  • ISBN: 0141969695
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 571

'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman


Levels of Infinity

Levels of Infinity

PDF Levels of Infinity Download

  • Author: Hermann Weyl
  • Publisher: Courier Corporation
  • ISBN: 0486266931
  • Category : Mathematics
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 258

Original anthology features less-technical essays discussing logic, topology, abstract algebra, relativity theory, and the works of David Hilbert. Most have been long unavailable or previously unpublished in book form. 2012 edition.


A Mutiny in Time (Infinity Ring, Book 1)

A Mutiny in Time (Infinity Ring, Book 1)

PDF A Mutiny in Time (Infinity Ring, Book 1) Download

  • Author: James Dashner
  • Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
  • ISBN: 0545473942
  • Category : Juvenile Fiction
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 225

Scholastic's next multi-platform mega-event begins here!History is broken, and three kids must travel back in time to set it right!When best friends Dak Smyth and Sera Froste stumble upon the secret of time travel -- a hand-held device known as the Infinity Ring -- they're swept up in a centuries-long secret war for the fate of mankind. Recruited by the Hystorians, a secret society that dates back to Aristotle, the kids learn that history has gone disastrously off course.Now it's up to Dak, Sera, and teenage Hystorian-in-training Riq to travel back in time to fix the Great Breaks . . . and to save Dak's missing parents while they're at it. First stop: Spain, 1492, where a sailor named Christopher Columbus is about to be thrown overboard in a deadly mutiny!


Achilles in the Quantum Universe

Achilles in the Quantum Universe

PDF Achilles in the Quantum Universe Download

  • Author: Richard Morris
  • Publisher: Macmillan
  • ISBN: 0805047794
  • Category : Astronomy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 239

Discusses how philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, and scientists throughout history have attempted to define infinity, and how each attempt has driven the advancement of physics and mathematics, including the development of relativity and quantum mechanics.


Infinity and the Mind

Infinity and the Mind

PDF Infinity and the Mind Download

  • Author: Rudy Rucker
  • Publisher: Bantam Books
  • ISBN: 5885010897
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 379

The book contains popular expositions (accessible to readers with no more than a high school mathematics background) on the mathematical theory of infinity, and a number of related topics. These include G?del's incompleteness theorems and their relationship to concepts of artificial intelligence and the human mind, as well as the conceivability of some unconventional cosmological models. The material is approached from a variety of viewpoints, some more conventionally mathematical and others being nearly mystical. There is a brief account of the author's personal contact with Kurt G?del.An appendix contains one of the few popular expositions on set theory research on what are known as "strong axioms of infinity."


The Invention of Infinity

The Invention of Infinity

PDF The Invention of Infinity Download

  • Author: Judith Veronica Field
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
  • ISBN: 0198523947
  • Category : Art
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 264

Fully illustrated, this story brings together the histories of arts and mathematics and shows how infinity at last acquired a precise mathematical meaning.


The Man Who Knew Infinity

The Man Who Knew Infinity

PDF The Man Who Knew Infinity Download

  • Author: Robert Kanigel
  • Publisher: Simon and Schuster
  • ISBN: 1476763496
  • Category : Biography & Autobiography
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 464

A biography of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. The book gives a detailed account of his upbringing in India, his mathematical achievements, and his mathematical collaboration with English mathematician G. H. Hardy. The book also reviews the life of Hardy and the academic culture of Cambridge University during the early twentieth century.