Infinity: New Research Frontiers

by Michael Heller (Editor), W. Hugh Woodin

“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 This interdisciplinary study of infinity explores the concept through the prism of mathematics and then offers more expansive investigations in areas beyond mathematical boundaries to reflect the broader, deeper implications of infinity for human intellectual thought. More than a dozen world‐renowned researchers in the fields of mathematics, physics, cosmology, philosophy, and theology offer a rich intellectual exchange among various current viewpoints, rather than displaying a static picture of accepted views on infinity. The book starts with a historical examination of the transformation of infinity from a philosophical and theological study to one dominated by mathematics. It then offers technical discussions on the understanding of mathematical infinity. Following this, the book considers the perspectives of physics and Can infinity be found in the real universe? Finally, the book returns to questions of philosophical and theological aspects of infinity.

Genres: Philosophy, Mathematics

326 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2011

About the author

Michał Kazimierz Heller is a professor of philosophy at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, Poland, and an adjunct member of the Vatican Observatory staff.

He also serves as a lecturer in the philosophy of science and logic at the Theological Institute in Tarnów.

Dr. Heller was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1959. He was awarded the Templeton Prize in March, 2008.

Reviews

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Indeed, the stars have always mirrored our inextinguishable need for infinity as a distinctive feature of human existence. Dante Alighieri ends each of the three parts of his Divine Comedy with the same word, “stars,” clearly a privileged image of our destiny. Interestingly, the etymology of the word “desire” is from the Latin “de-sidera” and may be translated as “nostalgia of the stars.”