'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.
For example, Richard Feynman was a student of the American physicist John Wheeler, who spent two years at Bohr's institute of theoretical physics in Copenhagen. Bohr worked with both J. J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford.
In this elegant book, mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini offers a brief cultural and intellectual history of mathematics, ranging widely from the paradoxes of ancient Greece to the sacred altars of India, from Mesopotamian calculus ...
This fresh overview of numbers and infinity avoids tedium and controversy while maintaining historical accuracy and modern relevance. Perfect for undergraduate mathematics or science history courses. 1981 edition.
An engaging account of the origins of the modern mathematical theory of the infinite, his book is also a spirited defense against the attacks and misconceptions that have dogged this theory since its introduction in the late nineteenth ...
A dynamic exploration of infinity In Infinity and the Mind, Rudy Rucker leads an excursion to that stretch of the universe he calls the “Mindscape,” where he explores infinity in all its forms: potential and actual, mathematical and ...
Winner of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award for 2011!This book offers an introduction to modern ideas about infinity and their implications for mathematics.
In this important new book, David Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the field of quantum computation, argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe.
The Infinite Book is a thoroughly entertaining and completely accessible account of the biggest subject of them all–infinity.
The Infinite, Third Edition is ideal reading for anyone interested in an engaging and historically informed account of this fascinating topic, whether from a philosophical point of view, a mathematical point of view, or a religious point of ...
When I looked up, I shivered.