Related papers: Bolzano and the Part-Whole Principle
In his Foundations of a General Theory of Manifolds, Georg Cantor praised Bernard Bolzano as a clear defender of actual infinity who had the courage to work with infinite numbers. At the same time, he sharply criticized the way Bolzano…
Bolzano and Cantor were the first mathematicians to make significant attempts to measure the size (numerosity) of different infinite collections. They differed in their methodological approaches, with Cantor's prevailing. This led to the…
The paper introduces the notion of the size of countable sets that preserves the Part-Whole Principle and generalizes the notion of the cardinality of finite sets. The sizes of natural numbers, integers, rational numbers, and all their…
Although Bolzano's concept of the continuum has gradually evolved, the basis remained the same: the continuum as an infinite class of points arranged in such a way that the so-called \emph{Bolzano completeness} holds. Bolzano realized over…
We discuss two main ways in comparing and evaluating the size of sets: the "Cantorian" way, grounded on the so called Hume principle (two sets have equal size if they are equipotent), and the "Euclidean" way, maintaining Euclid's principle…
Four constructions result from a desire to create enhancements to Cantor's infinite real set cardinality. Each continues to keep Cantor's cardinality formulation in place while providing new comparisons of arbitrary infinite sets. To…
Since the theory developed by Georg Cantor, mathematicians have taken a sharp interest in the sizes of infinite sets. We know that the set of integers is infinitely countable and that its cardinality is Aleph0. Cantor proved in 1891 with…
Discussions surrounding the nature of the infinite in mathematics have been underway for two millennia. Mathematicians, philosophers, and theologians have all taken part. The basic question has been whether the infinite exists only in…
According to Cantor, a set is a collection into a whole of defined and separate (we shall say distinct) objects. So, a natural question is ``How to treat as `sets' collections of indistinguishable objects?". This is the aim of quasi-set…
The inconsistencies involved in the foundation of set theory were invariably caused by infinity and self-reference; and only with the opportune axiomatic restrictions could them be obviated. Throughout history, both concepts have proved to…
During the early 1830's Bernard Bolzano, working in Prague, wrote a manuscript giving a foundational account of numbers and their properties. In the final section of his work he described what he called `infinite number expressions' and…
This thesis presents an alternative to Cantor's theory of cardinality, insofar as that is understood as a theory of set size. The alternative is based on a general theory, ClassSize. ClassSize contains all sentences in the first order…
From 1873 to 1897, Georg Cantor worked on developing set theory, and despite a strong initial resistance, it rapidly became accepted as the foundation of mathematics. In this work, however, we'll demonstrate that Cantor's use of infinity is…
Georg Cantor was the genuine discoverer of the Mathematical Infinity, and whatever he claimed, suggested, or even surmised should be taken seriously -- albeit not necessary at its face value. Because alongside his exquisite in beauty…
This paper provides some counterexamples to Cantor's contributions to the foundations of Set Theory. The first counterexample forces Cantor's Diagonal Method (DM) to yield one of the numbers in the target list. To study this anomaly, and…
We apply an inductive argument to three theorems of Cantor on (1) the uncountability of infinite binary sequences, (2) the uncountability of real numbers, and (3) the non-equinumerosity of sets with their powersets. This technique proves…
This article critically reappraises arguments in support of Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers. The following results are reported: i) Cantor's proofs of nondenumerability are refuted by analyzing the logical inconsistencies in…
The concept of ``countable set'' is attributed to Georg Cantor, who set the boundary between countable and uncountable sets in 1874. The concept of ``computable set'' arose in the study of computing models in the 1930s by the founders of…
The set splittability problem is the following: given a finite collection of finite sets, does there exits a single set that contains exactly half the elements from each set in the collection? (If a set has odd size, we allow the floor or…
A set theory is developed based on the approximations of sets and denoted by AS. In AS the set of all sets exists but the argument for Russell's and Cantor's paradox fail. The Axioms of Separation, Replacement and Foundation are not valid.…