5 ms·
"Transfinite" is a crappy word. It sounds cool, but it means just the same thing as "infinite" (namely "not finite"). Cantor devised it because he wanted a way
by nickdrozd 8y ago
"Transfinite" is a crappy word. It sounds cool, but it means just the same thing as "infinite" (namely "not finite"). Cantor devised it because he wanted a way to say "infinite" without offending certain theological sensibilities.
- mcguire 8y agoAccording to the article: "In his 1883 paper entitled Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre (“Foundations of a General Theory of Manifolds”) he introduced a distinction between two infinities, the transfinite and the absolute: "Transfinite numbers are numbers that are "infinite" in the sense that they are larger than all finite numbers, yet not necessarily absolutely infinite. "The absolute infinite Ω, also introduced by Cantor, can be thought as a number which is bigger than any conceivable or inconceivable quantity, either finite or transfinite."
- pickdenis 8y agoTransfinite does not mean infinite. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfinite_induction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfinite_induction