Infinity is an intriguing topic, with connections to religion, philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and physics as well as mathematics.
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He argues that working with infinity is not just an abstract, intellectual exercise but that it is instead a concept with important practical everyday applications, and considers how mathematicians use infinity and infinitesimals to answer questions or supply techniques that do not appear to involve the infinite.
In this Very Short Introduction, Ian Stewart discusses infinity in mathematics while also drawing in the various other aspects of infinity and explaining some of the major problems and insights arising from this concept.
But there are many others, for example Fourier analysis and fractals.
The most obvious, and the first context in which major new techniques depended on formulating infinite processes, is calculus.
Many vital areas of mathematics rest upon some version of infinity.
Philosophers and mathematicians ranging from Zeno to Russell have posed numerous paradoxes about infinity and infinitesimals.
Cosmologists consider sweeping questions about whether space and time are infinite.
The infinitely large (infinite) is intimately related to the infinitely small (infinitesimal).
Its history goes back to ancient times, with especially important contributions from Euclid, Aristotle, Eudoxus, and Archimedes.
Infinity is an intriguing topic, with connections to religion, philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and physics as well as mathematics
