Everything and MoreEverything and More
a Compact History of [Infinity]
Title rated 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 30 ratings(30 ratings)
Book, 2003
Current format, Book, 2003, 1st ed, No Longer Available.Book, 2003
Current format, Book, 2003, 1st ed, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsOne 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.
California novelist and essayist Wallace contributes to the series of popular technical writing by examining a set of mathematical achievements that he finds to be extremely abstract and technical but also extremely profound, interesting, and beautiful. He writes for readers who have no technical background, and includes sections clearly marked for those who do. He has not indexed his work. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
The award-winning author of Infinite Jest considers the paradoxical nature of infinity, considering whether or not it is mathematically plausible or just an abstract concept, and examining the work of Georg Cantor as it contributed to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and computer technology. 50,000 first printing.
Considers the paradoxical nature of infinity, considering whether or not it is mathematically plausible or just an abstract concept, and examining the work of Georg Cantor as it contributed to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and computer technology.
The best-selling author of Infinite Jest on the two-thousand-year-old quest to understand infinity.
California novelist and essayist Wallace contributes to the series of popular technical writing by examining a set of mathematical achievements that he finds to be extremely abstract and technical but also extremely profound, interesting, and beautiful. He writes for readers who have no technical background, and includes sections clearly marked for those who do. He has not indexed his work. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
The award-winning author of Infinite Jest considers the paradoxical nature of infinity, considering whether or not it is mathematically plausible or just an abstract concept, and examining the work of Georg Cantor as it contributed to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and computer technology. 50,000 first printing.
Considers the paradoxical nature of infinity, considering whether or not it is mathematically plausible or just an abstract concept, and examining the work of Georg Cantor as it contributed to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and computer technology.
The best-selling author of Infinite Jest on the two-thousand-year-old quest to understand infinity.
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- New York : W.W. Norton, c2003.
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