NOVA: How do mathematicians define infinity? Netz: Something which is equal to some of its parts. That's really the technical definition. NOVA: Is there a difference between the mathematical concept ...
When mathematician Georg Cantor first glimpsed the true nature of infinity, it changed mathematics forever. He demonstrated that infinity isn’t just endless; it exists in different sizes, each opening ...
Last week, my first grader came home with thoughts about math (I love it when she does that!) She said that, since one hundred plus ten was “one hundred and ten”, that, therefore, infinity plus ten ...
Albert Einstein famously said: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe.” The notion of infinity has been pondered by the greatest minds over the ...
A starry firmament, or sand cascading through one’s open fingers, or weeds springing up time after time: the first conception of infinity, of the uncountable and the unending, is not recorded, but it ...
Every year on December 22, India celebrates National Mathematics Day to mark the birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a man whose ideas arrived decades before the world was ready to understand ...
Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. Reviel Netz: Something which is equal to some of its parts.