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The Principles of Mathematics: Which?

This document summarizes the origins and development of set theory. It began with Georg Cantor's 1874 paper, which founded set theory as a field. Since ancient times mathematicians struggled with the concept of infinity, but modern understanding began with Cantor's work in the late 1800s. Initially controversial, set theory became widely used due to its conceptual tools like one-to-one correspondences between sets. In the early 1900s, paradoxes in set theory like Russell's paradox were discovered, but set theory was not abandoned. Work by Zermelo and Fraenkel resulted in the ZFC axioms, which became the standard foundation of set theory. Set theory is now fundamental to modern mathematics.

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25 views

The Principles of Mathematics: Which?

This document summarizes the origins and development of set theory. It began with Georg Cantor's 1874 paper, which founded set theory as a field. Since ancient times mathematicians struggled with the concept of infinity, but modern understanding began with Cantor's work in the late 1800s. Initially controversial, set theory became widely used due to its conceptual tools like one-to-one correspondences between sets. In the early 1900s, paradoxes in set theory like Russell's paradox were discovered, but set theory was not abandoned. Work by Zermelo and Fraenkel resulted in the ZFC axioms, which became the standard foundation of set theory. Set theory is now fundamental to modern mathematics.

Uploaded by

rshegde
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Mathematical topics typically emerge and evolve through interactions among many researchers.

Set theory, however, was founded by a single paper in 1874 by Georg Cantor: "On a Property of
the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers".[1][2]

Since the 5th century BC, beginning with Greek mathematician Zeno of Elea in the West and
early Indian mathematicians in the East, mathematicians had struggled with the concept of
infinity. Especially notable is the work of Bernard Bolzano in the first half of the 19th century.[3]
Modern understanding of infinity began in 186771, with Cantor's work on number theory. An
1872 meeting between Cantor and Richard Dedekind influenced Cantor's thinking and
culminated in Cantor's 1874 paper.

Cantor's work initially polarized the mathematicians of his day. While Karl Weierstrass and
Dedekind supported Cantor, Leopold Kronecker, now seen as a founder of mathematical
constructivism, did not. Cantorian set theory eventually became widespread, due to the utility of
Cantorian concepts, such as one-to-one correspondence among sets, his proof that there are more
real numbers than integers, and the "infinity of infinities" ("Cantor's paradise") resulting from the
power set operation. This utility of set theory led to the article "Mengenlehre" contributed in
1898 by Arthur Schoenflies to Klein's encyclopedia.

The next wave of excitement in set theory came around 1900, when it was discovered that some
interpretations of Cantorian set theory gave rise to several contradictions, called antinomies or
paradoxes. Bertrand Russell and Ernst Zermelo independently found the simplest and best
known paradox, now called Russell's paradox: consider "the set of all sets that are not members
of themselves", which leads to a contradiction since it must be a member of itself, and not a
member of itself. In 1899 Cantor had himself posed the question "What is the cardinal number of
the set of all sets?", and obtained a related paradox. Russell used his paradox as a theme in his
1903 review of continental mathematics in his The Principles of Mathematics.

In 1906 English readers gained the book Theory of Sets of Points[4] by William Henry Young and
his wife Grace Chisholm Young, published by Cambridge University Press.

The momentum of set theory was such that debate on the paradoxes did not lead to its
abandonment. The work of Zermelo in 1908 and Abraham Fraenkel in 1922 resulted in the set of
axioms ZFC, which became the most commonly used set of axioms for set theory. The work of
analysts such as Henri Lebesgue demonstrated the great mathematical utility of set theory, which
has since become woven into the fabric of modern mathematics. Set theory is commonly used as
a foundational system, although in some areas[which?] category theory is thought to be a preferred
foundation.

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