Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Others But There’s No Biggest One
Georg Cantor came up with an ingenious proof that infinities can differ in size even though both remain infiniteWhen a child is asked “what is bigger than infinity,” the response is often “Infinity plus one.” No. Infinity plus one is still infinity. But we can show that the number of points on the interval zero to one is a bigger infinity than the counting numbers are. The first clue is the fact that we can’t count the number of points on a line interval. Try labeling the points on a line as points 1, 2, 3, etc. No matter what scheme you come up with, there will always be some points on the line segment that are not included in your count. Georg Cantor (1845–1918) came up with an ingenious argument to show that the infinite number of Read More ›