Georg Cantor
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor (March 3, 1845 – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician. He created set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor died of a heart attack in 1918; he was buried at the University of Halle in a private ceremony.
About Georg Cantor in brief
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor (March 3, 1845 – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician. He created set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor’s theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré. Some Christian theologians saw Cantor’s work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory with pantheism. Cantor was a devout Lutheran, and believed the theory had been communicated to him by God. His recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life have been blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries, though some have explained these episodes as probable manifestations of a bipolar disorder. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded Cantor its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer for work in mathematics, for his work on set theory. He died in Halle, Germany, where he spent his entire career. He had six children, the last of whom, Vally Guttmann, was the last to be born in 1886. He is buried in the Halle University Cemetery, next to his wife, who he married in 1874. He was also awarded the requisite habilitation for his thesis, which he presented in 1869 upon his appointment as professor of number theory.
To attain the rank of professor at the age of 34 was a notable accomplishment, but Cantor desired a more prestigious chair at a university more prestigious than Halle. He met Richard Dedekind two years earlier while on holiday in the Harz mountains, while he spent much time in mathematical discussions with Richard dedekind, whom he had met two years before. Cantor died of a heart attack in 1918; he was buried at the University of Halle in a private ceremony. He left a large fortune to his family, including a large sum for his wife’s funeral. He also left a fortune to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic, which is now the Technische Universität Darmstadt. Cantor is buried at Halle with his wife Vally, who had been his last child, and his two children, who were born in 1876 and 1883. He wrote a number of books, including “Theory of Numbers” and “The Theory of Set Theory” (1905). He also wrote a series of articles on trigonometry, including on the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. His work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of. He received his doctorate degree in 1867, and he received his PhD in 1879 at the University of Berlin. He later became a full professor in 1872 and was promoted to extraordinary rank in 1880. He retired from the university of Halle in 1879.
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