Department of Mathematics - Mathematics Colloquium - Mathematics Grapples with Infinity, from Achilles to Woodin

Achilles and the Tortoise’s race bothered the Greeks but their math embraced infinity. I will illustrate the concept of “countable” infinities and Cantor’s great result that the points on a line cannot be counted. Nowadays, a branch of math called set theory builds huge towers and embraces vast infinities, what Woodin calls the “V-view”, believing in the reality of V, the “collection of all sets”. My talk is aimed for a general audience without experience with math.