November 13, 2016 Sunday
Bedtime Story
On Georg Cantor
On Georg Cantor
Probably no other genius has been so much reviled and loathed by his
contemporaries and doyens of his field than was Georg Cantor.
The scorn came not for his race, religion, skin color or his
accent of speech; it was for the mathematics that he conjured out of something
as simple as a set theory.
Now set theory isn’t something hard to begin with.
It is considered a branch of mathematical logic (or foundations of
mathematics) that investigates sets which simply implies a collection of
objects.
It made me wonder what was it that Cantor conceived out of this
apparently benign topic such that the very foundations of mathematics fell
under disrepute.
Let me try to tell this story for you.
Georg Cantor was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian empire in 1845
when it was ruled by Nicholas I the Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and
Garand Duke of Finland.
Under Nicholas I, the Russian Empire had attained its peak in
terms of territory, annexing Caucasus (today’s Armenia and Azerbaijan), and
Dagestan and Georgia.
Cantor’s family stayed in the city till Georg was 11, but in 1856
when his father became ill, his family moved to Germany.
Can you think of a reason for doing so?
It was that barbaric frigid Russian winter.
The dreadful Russian winter had defeated the Swedes in 1707, Napoleon’s
Grande Armée in 1812 and the Nazi Wehrmacht invasion of 1941 codenamed
Operation Barbarossa.
The Soviet USSR proudly claimed winter to be their biggest ally
and used to call it General Winter (may be the Russians still do).
Cantor in a letter to Bertrand Russell once described his genealogy
as such:
“Neither my father nor my mother were of German blood, the first
being a Dane born in Kopenhagen, my mother being of Austrian Hungar descension.
“You must know Sir, that I am not a regular just Germain, for I am
born 3 March 1945 in Saint Peterborough, Capital of Russia, but I went with my
father and mother and brothers and sister, eleven years old in the year 1856,
into Germany.”
In Germany where he underwent his schooling in the city of
Darmstadt, his brilliant mathematical skills, trigonometry in particular, came
into focus.
When he was 18 his father expired leaving him with a substantial wealth
which he had accumulated while working at the Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night and my fellow cousin ape.
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, may I
suggest this large collection of Kids Songs:
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