Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity

David Foster Wallace

3.7/5 ( ratings)

One of the outstanding voices of his generation, David Foster Wallace has won a large and devoted following for the intellectual ambition and bravura style of his fiction and essays. Now he brings his considerable talents to the history of one of math's most enduring puzzles: the seemingly paradoxical nature of infinity.

Is infinity a valid mathematical property or a meaningless abstraction? The nineteenth-century mathematical genius Georg Cantor's answer to this question not only surprised him but also shook the very foundations upon which math had been built. Cantor's counterintuitive discovery of a progression of larger and larger infinities created controversy in his time and may have hastened his mental breakdown, but it also helped lead to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and even computer technology. Smart, challenging, and thoroughly rewarding, Wallace's tour de force brings immediate and high-profile recognition to the bizarre and fascinating world of higher mathematics.

Language: English

Pages: 344

Format: Paperback

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Release: October 04, 2010

ISBN: 0393339289

ISBN 13: 9780393339284

Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity

David Foster Wallace

3.7/5 ( ratings)

One of the outstanding voices of his generation, David Foster Wallace has won a large and devoted following for the intellectual ambition and bravura style of his fiction and essays. Now he brings his considerable talents to the history of one of math's most enduring puzzles: the seemingly paradoxical nature of infinity.

Is infinity a valid mathematical property or a meaningless abstraction? The nineteenth-century mathematical genius Georg Cantor's answer to this question not only surprised him but also shook the very foundations upon which math had been built. Cantor's counterintuitive discovery of a progression of larger and larger infinities created controversy in his time and may have hastened his mental breakdown, but it also helped lead to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and even computer technology. Smart, challenging, and thoroughly rewarding, Wallace's tour de force brings immediate and high-profile recognition to the bizarre and fascinating world of higher mathematics.

Language: English

Pages: 344

Format: Paperback

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Release: October 04, 2010

ISBN: 0393339289

ISBN 13: 9780393339284

More books from David Foster Wallace

Infinite Jest

4.2/5 ( ratings)

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

4.2/5 ( ratings)

This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

4.5/5 ( ratings)

The Broom of the System

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Pale King

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Oblivion: Stories

Girl with Curious Hair

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?