'Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.' Douglas Adams, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
We human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren. Exploring the infinite is a journey into paradox. Here is a quantity that turns arithmetic on its head, making it feasible that 1 = 0. Here is a concept that enables us to cram as many extra guests as we like into an already full hotel. Most bizarrely of all, it is quite easy to show that there must be something bigger than infinity - when it surely should be the biggest thing that could possibly be.
Brian Clegg takes us on a fascinating tour of that borderland between the extremely large and the ultimate that takes us from Archimedes, counting the grains of sand that would fill the universe, to the latest theories on the physical reality of the infinite. Full of unexpected delights, whether St Augustine contemplating the nature of creation, Newton and Leibniz battling over ownership of calculus, or Cantor struggling to publicise his vision of the transfinite, infinity's fascination is in the way it brings together the everyday and the extraordinary, prosaic daily life and the esoteric.
Whether your interest in infinity is mathematical, philosophical, spiritual or just plain curious, this accessible book offers a stimulating and entertaining read.
Infinity is a concept that fascinates everyone from a seven-year-old child to a maths professor. So remarkable and strange is it that contemplating it has driven at least two great mathematicians over the edge into insanity. Where did the concept of infinity come from? Who were the people who originally defined and later refined this paradoxical quantity? Why is infinity, a concept we can never experience or truly grasp, at the heart of science? How can some infinities be bigger than others? An exploration of the most mind-boggling feature of maths and physics, this work examines amazing paradoxes, for example Hilbert's Hotel. This imaginary resort has an infinite number of rooms, which all happen to be occupied. Unfortunately an endless coach turns up carrying an infinite number of new guests. It's not a problem though - it's easy to prove they can all be accommodated. The book also looks at: the people who devised and refined the concept, the many mind-bending paradoxes of infinity, infinity's place at the heart of mathematics and science in processes such as calculus, how dividing by zero brings infinity into view and infinity and cosmos.
