Cheap To Infinity and Beyond (Book) (Eli Maor) Price

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Customer Reviews of To Infinity and Beyond

To the limits of infinity
Even as children we have a vague concept of infinity, thinking of it as the largest number; remember the familiar exchange of "I dare you!" "I double-dare!" "I dare you to infinity!" "I dare you to infinity plus one!" or some such thing. Even then, we realize to some extent that infinity is not truly the largest number because there is always something bigger.

Maor gives a brief history of the concept of infinity and how it fits into the worlds of art and science. This is a generally good book although there are a couple of errors (such as when he mixes up the concepts of whole numbers and integers). Maor is good at illustrating just how big infinity is without getting either overly technical or metaphysical (a problem with the last book I read on infinity, whose title I forget). Maor also shows how there are different sizes of infinity; it is often hard to conceive that there are more irrational numbers between 0 and .00001 then there are rational numbers along the whole number line.

With the exception of the couple of minor errors mentioned above, this is a good book. Infinity is a difficult concept to grasp, but with this book, you can do just that.

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The finest generally accessible math book I have seen.
I have read other books by Eli Maor. After "June 8, 2004", I had doubts about this one, but I wanted to clarify some Cantorian issues. Once I started this one, I could not put it down. It also answered my questions.

Most, if not all of the material should be accessible to a motivated high school senior. It presents the history of infinity in a manner as fascinating as a mystery or adventure story (a true one, better than fiction); it reminds me of "Terrible Lizards" in that sense. Interspersed with the historical narrative, but easily separable, it contains good solid mathematics in a clear and concise fashion. Only the section on Bertrand Russell's paradoxes failed to satisfy.

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The Infinite in Nature
Maor titles his book "a cultural study," but the cultural work domainates the second half of the book. The first half--which is more interesting than the second half--is a truly amazing analysis of just what the infinite is. Maor goes into detailed discussion of the nature of infinity in prime numbers, irrationals, rationals, and so on. The patterns, surprises, and mysteries of number fields are discussed with perfect clarity. Other issues involving infinity are mapped with equal precision and clarity for the beginner. The second half of the book involves studying the infinite in Escher's art, in geometric systems before and after Euclid, and in art, theology, science, singularities, and etc. Overall, for those interested in the mecahnics of nature, this book is not to be passed up!!! But be cautioned, this book is for beginners, for those only interested in grasping basic concepts of mathematics, not intense formulas that lead to singularities, for example. I am a graduate student in philosophy, so it served my purposes to the maximum level.