Mathematics, in the development of its ideas, has only to take account of the immanent reality of its concepts and has absolutely no obligation to ex… - Georg Cantor

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Mathematics, in the development of its ideas, has only to take account of the immanent reality of its concepts and has absolutely no obligation to examine their transient reality.

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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."

Also Known As

Native Name: George Cantor
Alternative Names: Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor Cantor

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Additional quotes by Georg Cantor

I have never proceeded from any Genus supremum of the actual infinite. Quite the contrary, I have rigorously proved that there is absolutely no Genus supremum of the actual infinite. What surpasses all that is finite and transfinite is no Genus; it is the single, completely individual unity in which everything is included, which includes the Absolute, incomprehensible to the human understanding. This is the Actus Purissimus, which by many is called God. I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author. Thus I believe that there is no part of matter which is not — I do not say divisible — but actually divisible; and consequently the least particle ought to be considered as a world full of an infinity of different creatures.

What I declare and believe to have demonstrated in this work as well as in earlier papers is that following the finite there is a transfinite (transfinitum)--which might also be called supra-finite (suprafinitum), that is, there is an unlimited ascending ladder of modes, which in its nature is not finite but infinite, but which can be determined as can the finite by determinate, well-defined and distinguishable numbers.

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This view [of the infinite], which I consider to be the sole correct one, is held by only a few. While possibly I am the very first in history to take this position so explicitly, with all of its logical consequences, I know for sure that I shall not be the last!

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