To Infinity and Beyond? Srsly.


Sean Sather-Wagstaff
Department of Mathematics
5pm, April 27, 2012
Minard 136

Abstract: In calculus, we are taught that infinity is not a number. In some sense, what we are taught is the truth. However, there is a definition of "number" that allows infinity to be a number. (In fact, it allows for infinitely many different infinities.) I will discuss some aspects of this idea, working toward a discussion of the Continuum Hypothesis and its strange consequences in algebra.