Cantor and Continuity
Cantor and Continuity Akihiro Kanamori May 1, 2018 Georg Cantor (1845-1919), with his seminal work on sets and number, brought forth a new field of inquiry, set theory, and ushered in a way of proceeding in mathematics, one at base infinitary, topological, and combinatorial. While this was the thrust, his work at the beginning was embedded in issues and concerns of real analysis and contributed fundamentally to its 19th Century rigorization, a development turning on limits and continuity. And a continuing engagement with limits and continuity would be very much part of Cantor's mathematical journey, even as dramatically new conceptualizations emerged. Evolutionary accounts of Cantor's work mostly underscore his progressive ascent through set- theoretic constructs to transfinite number, this as the storied beginnings of set theory. In this article, we consider Cantor's work with a steady focus on con- tinuity, putting it first into the context of rigorization and then pursuing the increasingly set-theoretic constructs leading to its further elucidations. Beyond providing a narrative through the historical record about Cantor's progress, we will bring out three aspectual motifs bearing on the history and na- ture of mathematics. First, with Cantor the first mathematician to be engaged with limits and continuity through progressive activity over many years, one can see how incipiently metaphysical conceptualizations can become systemati- cally transmuted through mathematical formulations and results so that one can chart progress on the understanding of concepts. Second, with counterweight put on Cantor's early career, one can see the drive of mathematical necessity pressing through Cantor's work toward extensional mathematics, the increasing objectification of concepts compelled, and compelled only by, his mathematical investigation of aspects of continuity and culminating in the transfinite numbers and set theory.
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