The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. All of modern mathematics is built on the foundation of set theory, the study of how to organize abstract collections of objects. But in ...

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Infinity contains everything, including multiple kinds of infinities. Mathematicians have long known that there are many kinds of infinities (technically, there are an infinity of them).

Although it has ancient roots, the meaning of infinity remains baffling, and it seems to have absolutely no bearing on everyday life. The mathematics of infinity is complex, but it isn’t simply a very ...

For sheer brilliance, it was hard to beat John von Neumann. An architect of the modern computer and inventor of game theory, von Neumann was legendary, above all, for his lightning-fast mental ...