The Idea of Infinity: When Mathematics Conflicts with Physics

Ali
6 min readSep 15, 2024

The simplest way to describe infinity is as an unapproachable distance. And modern mathematics, which accelerated the construction of the modern world, was born entirely from the concept of infinity.

Until the early 20th century, mathematics was divided into elementary and higher mathematics. Elementary mathematics was mathematics with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, that is, mathematics with four operations. On the other hand, higher mathematics was mathematics using the limit operation introduced by Augustin Cauchy in addition to the four operations. Of course, today, this kind of classification is very inadequate. I am talking about the 1800s and 1900s.

However, introducing the limit operation into mathematics as the fifth operation has greatly expanded the field of mathematics and brought solutions to many physical problems. Today, all modern science and technology products owe their existence entirely to the concept of limit.

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Ali

Math Teacher. Content Curator. Soccer player. Maradona fan. Mostly write about the lectures I love to learn better. alikayaspor@gmail.com