To Infinity and Beyond: A Cultural History of the Infinite

The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man; no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect; yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite. . . - David Hilbert (1862-1943) Infinity is a fathomless gulf, There is a story attributed to David Hilbert, the preeminent mathe­ into which all things matician whose quotation appears above. A man walked into a vanish. hotel late one night and asked for a room. "Sorr...