GEORG CANTOR His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite Joseph Warren DaubenGEORG CANTOR His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite Joseph Warren Dauben PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEYPublished by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 Copyright © 1979 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All Rights Reserved irst Princeton Paperback printing, 1990 Reprinted by arrangement with the author and Harvard University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dauben, Joseph Warren, 1944— Georg Cantor: his mathematics and philosophy of the infinite’ Joseph Warren Dauben. p.cm, Reprint. Originally published: Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979, Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-08583-8 (cloth) ISBN 0-691-02447-2 (paper) I, Set theory—History. 2. Numbers, Transfinite—History. 3. Cantor, Georg, 1845-1918. 4. Infinite. 1. Title (QA248.027 1990 511.3'22'09—de20 90.8579 Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper. and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources 10 9 8 Printed in the United States of AmericaFOR MY PARENTS, FOR ELAINE, AND FOR DAVIDAcknowledgments Henry Adams once wrote that if Harvard College gave nothing else, it gave calm. Though some might assess Harvard’ s recent past somewhat differently, I am nevertheless indebted to Harvard University for six years of study, teaching, and research, made possible in part by a Harvard Graduate Prize Fellowship. I am further indebted to Harvard for providing me with a University Traveling Fellowship, and to the National Science Foundation for a dissertation grant which supported a year of archival research in Germany, Sweden, and Italy during the academic year 1970-71. Generous support from the Faculty Re- search Foundation of the City University of New York and a grant from the Mellon Foundation have also helped make this book possible Of the many librarians and archivists who gave willingly of their time and help, special appreciation is due to Dr. Herta Battré of the Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR (Berlin) for her patience in guiding me through the early and perplexing adjustment to problems of German handwriting and the idiosyncrasies of individual penmanships. Similarly, I am grateful to Dr. Schippang of the Handschriftenabteilung and the Darmstaedter Sammlung of the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin, Dahlem), and to Dr Haenel of the Handschriftenabteilung of the Niederstichsische Staats- und Universititsbibliothek, Gottingen, for their help and interest in my archival research. In Djiirsholm, Sweden, Dr. Lennart Carleson generously arranged accommodations for the month I spent at the Institut Mittag-Leffler, including an office in the institute, which allowed maximal use of the archive and library there. I am also grateful to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and to the ‘American Academy in Rome for the use of their libraries and research facilities In particular, I am happy to thank Janice and Norman Rosenthal of New Yorkvit City, who offered peace and quiet in Porto Ercole, where the final version of this manuscript was written For permission to consult the documents surviving in the estate of Georg Cantor, I am pleased to acknowledge the kind cooperation of Oberstudienrat Wilhelm Stahl of Bad Godesberg, Germany. Professor Herbert Meschkowski, who was always willing to discuss matters of Cantor’ life and work, offered me materials from his personal library, including two dozen letters written by the Halle mathematician Eduard Heine to H. A. Schwarz, several of which are reproduced in the appendixes. I am also grateful to Mrs. Lily Riidenberg for allowing me to examine the correspondence between her father, Hermann Minkowski, and David Hilbert, before they were made available in the edition recently published by Professor Hans Zassenhaus. Additional acknowledgment of archival and library sources used in the course of research for this book can be found at the beginning of the appendixes. In one form or another, parts of the typescript have been read by Professors Kurt-R. Biermann, the late Carl Boyer, Richard Brauer, I. Bernard Cohen, Thomas Hawkins, John Murdoch, and Imré Toth. Their comments and sugges- tions have helped sharpen at many points the acumen of both my expression and my exposition. For help with translation, I am especially indebted to Professor John D. Poynter, who first taught me German and who has been a continuous source of encouragement and inspiration from the time I was one of his students at Claremont. I am grateful for his help in adding precision and literacy to the English translations supplied throughout this book Similarly, Professors John Murdoch and Judy Grabiner were the major forces guiding my preparation in the history of mathematics, and their help and encouragement define in great measure the direction and nature of my interests generally. I also owe special thanks to my two readers, Professor Erwin Hiebert of Harvard University and Professor Emeritus Dirk J. Struik of the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology, for overseeing the general development of my doctoral dissertation (“The Early Development of Cantorian Set Theory,” Harvard University, 1972), which was devoted to material comprising much of the first six chapters of this book. ‘A major debt I shall never be able to repay belongs to Dr. Ivor Grattan- Guinness, Hertfordshire, England, who has always been generous with his time, merciless with his criticisms, and indispensable with his encouragement. I appreciate in particular his continuing interest and advice and his willingness to provide me with copies of his own papers long before they were published. Equally valuable has been the advice and criticism of my colleague Professor Esther Phillips of Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York. Her scrutiny of the final typescript has saved me from many an oversight or imprecision. One last expression of my appreciation must be added, one of special importance to me, and one I have made before. In 1972 I dedicated my1x dissertation to Professor and Mrs. I. Bernard Cohen, to Professor Dr. and Mrs. Kurt-R. Biermann, and to Dr. and Mrs. Ivor Grattan-Guinness, for their continuing interest, support, and friendship. Over the years since leaving Harvard, my gratitude to them has only deepened, and Iam happy to acknow!- edge their special importance to me once again. A final word to Vivian H. Breitel and to David F. Grose, who patiently followed the entire course of this book from beginning to end. That itis finally finished is due as much to their efforts as to anyone’s. They proved to be indefatigable sources of inspiration, solace, and sympathy, and with boundless affection and appreciation, my ultimate thanks are to themContents Introduction Preludes in Analysis The Origins of Cantorian Set Theory: Trigonometric Series, Real Numbers, and Derived Sets Denumerability and Dimension Cantor's Early Theory of Point Sets The Mathematics of Cantor's Grundlagen Cantor's Philosophy of the Infinite From the Grundlagen to the Beitriige, 1883-1895 The Beitréige, Part I: The Study of Simply-Ordered Sets The Beitréige, Part Il: The Study of Well-Ordered Sets The Foundations and Philosophy of Cantorian Set Theory The Paradoxes and Problems of Post-Cantorian Set Theory Epilogue: The Significance of Cantor's Personality Appendixes: Previously Unpublished Correspondence Notes Bibliography Index 30 47 77 95 120 149 169 194 219 240 271 303 315 361 385Cantor with his wife, Vally, about 1880, In the possession of Egbert SchneiderIn re mathematica ars proponendi quaestionem pluris facienda est quam solvendi —Georg CantorIntroduction Georg Cantor (1845-1918), the creator of transfinite set theory, is one of the most imaginative and controversial figures in the history of mathematics. Toward the end of the nineteenth century his study of continuity and the infinite eventually forced him to depart radically from standard interpretations and use of infinity in mathematics. Because his views were unorthodox, they stimulated lively debate and at times vigorous denunciation. Leopold Kronecker consid- ered Cantor a scientific charlatan, a renegade, a “corrupter of youth,” but Bertrand Russell described him as one of the greatest intellects of the nineteenth, century.’ David Hilbert believed Cantor had created a new paradise for mathematicians, though others, notably Henri Poincaré, thought set theory and Cantor's transfinite numbers represented a grave mathematical malady, a perverse pathological illness that would one day be cured.? Both in his own time and in the years since, Cantor's name has signified both controversy and schism. Ultimately, transfinite set theory has served to divide mathematicians into distant camps determined largely by their irreconcilable views of the nature of mathematics in general and of the status of the infinite in particular. Like many controversial figures in history, Cantor was often misunderstood, not only by his contemporaries, but by later biographers and historians as well. This is particularly clear from the myths which have arisen concerning his personality and his nervous breakdowns. In his own day Cantor was regarded as an eccentric, if exciting, man, who apparently stimulated interest wherever he went, particularly among younger mathematicians. But it was the mathemati- cian and historian E.T. Bell who popularized the portrait of a man whose problems and insecurities stemmed from Freudian antagonisms with his father and whose relationship with his archrival Leopold Kronecker was exacerbated because both men were Jewish.° In fact, Cantor was not Jewish, He was born and baptized a Lutheran and was a devout Christian during his entire life.*