Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity - Hardcover

Wallace, David Foster

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297645676 ISBN 13: 9780297645672

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

David Foster Wallace is the award-winning author of two novels, two collections of stories, and a collection of essays. He lives in Berkeley, California

Edition details

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0297645676
• ISBN 13: 9780297645672
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336