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December 7, 2003 1:32 PM

Welcome to the Hotel Infinity! A narrative description of Cantor's ideas of infinity.
posted by Orange Goblin (9 comments total)

I heard about a great play called Infinities that uses these very concepts; sounds like a wonderful thing for theatre.
posted by adrianhon at 2:01 PM on December 7, 2003

And a narrative description of Borges' ideas of infinity: The Library of Babel, one of my favorite short stories of all time.

[Link is full text of the story! It's quite short and well worth reading.]
posted by The Michael The at 2:30 PM on December 7, 2003

hm. I was waiting for them to find a way for an uncountably infinite set of people to show up...
posted by kaibutsu at 4:47 PM on December 7, 2003

The Hotel also has a narrative prescance in Rudy Rucker's delightful While Light, in case you fancy another illustration. The whole book is pretty much about infinity in fact.
posted by Gamecat at 5:20 PM on December 7, 2003

Bugger, I'll spell-check the next one, I promise...
posted by Gamecat at 5:21 PM on December 7, 2003

[this is good]
posted by dg at 5:54 PM on December 7, 2003

I originally learned it as David Hilbert's Hotel, courtesy of Arkansas Governor's School.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 6:05 PM on December 7, 2003

For anyone interested in this topic, I can recommend Amir Aczel's "The Mystery of Aleph", a very nice biography of Cantor, as well as an insightful tour of the mathematics behind it. Mind-boggling stuff.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 12:22 AM on December 8, 2003

there's also david foster wallace's newest, everything and more. i enjoyed it, though a friend who knows more math than me quibbles with wallace's fixation on cantor.
posted by jcruelty at 3:46 PM on December 8, 2003