That from the outset they expect or even impose all the pro… - Georg Cantor

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That from the outset they expect or even impose all the properties of finite numbers upon the numbers in question, while on the other hand the infinite numbers, if they are to be considered in any form at all, must (in their contrast to the finite numbers) constitute an entirely new kind of number, whose nature is entirely dependent upon the nature of things and is an object of research, but not of our arbitrariness or prejudices.

Georg Cantor

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About Georg Cantor

Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor (3 March 1845 – 6 January 1918) was a Russian-born German mathematician and philosopher of Danish and Austrian descent, most famous as the creator of set theory, and of Cantor's theorem which implies the existence of an "infinity of infinities."

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Native Name: George Cantor

Alternative Names: Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor • Cantor

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Originators like Georg Cantor:

Richard Dedekind Giordano Bruno Henri Poincaré George Ballard Mathews Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Additional quotes by Georg Cantor

The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds.

If there is some determinate succession of defined whole real numbers, among which there exists no greatest, on the basis of this second principle of generation a new number is obtained which is regarded as the limit of those numbers, i.e. is defined as the next greater number than all of them.

As for the mathematical infinite, to the extent that it has found a justified application in science and contributed to its usefulness, it seems to me that it has hitherto appeared principally in the role of a variable quantity, which either grows beyond all bounds or diminishes to any desired minuteness, but always remains finite. I call this the improper infinite [das Uneigentlich-unendliche].

That from the outset they expect or even impose all the properties of finite numbers upon the numbers in question, while on the other hand the infini… - Georg Cantor

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