Everything and More
A Compact History of ∞
“A gripping guide to the modern taming of the infinite.” —New York Times Book Review
Since the time of the ancient Greeks, mathematicians have wrestled with the concept of infinity. David Foster Wallace brings his intellectual ambition, bravura, and considerable talent to the history of the infinite and the controversy that surrounds it.
Patiently and ingeniously, Wallace takes readers through arguments from Plato and Aristotle, Galileo and Newton, all the way to the nineteenth-century genius Georg Cantor’s counterintuitive—and mind-bendingly beautiful—discovery of a progression of larger and larger infinities. Everything and More promises just that, to the casual reader and the specialist alike.
“Everything and More is, in nearly every way, a gift. It’s a thoughtful and witty 300-page testimonial to the qualities I never fully understood that mathematics possessed: Math is astonishing and full of ‘shadowlands,’ and—ultimately—stunning beauty.” —The Boston Globe
“[Wallace] brings to his task a refreshingly conversational style as well as a surprisingly authoritative command of mathematics . . . A success.” —The American Scholar
“Shockingly readable. . . . A brilliant antidote both to boring math textbooks and to pop-culture math books that emphasize the discoverer over the discovery.” —Booklist