Infinity: It’s easy to say, but what does it really mean? Find the answer to that question and many others at the Senior Academy’s presentation, “The Mystery of Infinity,” on Wednesday, December 4 and Tuesday, December 10, both from 2 p.m.– 4 p.m. in the Cribari Conference Room, presented by frequent Senior Academy speaker John Trudeau.
When the ancient Greeks first got a hint of Infinity, the concept was so overwhelming and contrary to every human intuition that it confounded the philosophers who discovered it. Yet the consequences of their discovery impact philosophy, math and science even to this day. We’re going to go into some detail behind our current understanding of Infinity, but you won’t need any mathematical expertise or training to follow the material in this course.
The path to Infinity starts with numbers, so in the first session on Wednesday, December 4 we’ll explore the different kinds of numbers, the development of the Calculus, and how we got to some strange, early discoveries about Infinity. We’ll also consider the “Continuum Hypothesis,” a very important element in the modern understanding of Infinity.
In the second session on Tuesday, December 10, we’ll look beyond Infinity (is that even possible?) and see how this leads to some serious contradictions within the logic of mathematics itself. Finally, we’ll take a visual tour of the Mandelbrot Set to see how Infinity is embedded in those mathematical images and in nature itself, and how, if you’re careful, you can hold Infinity in the palm of your hand…
John Trudeau is a popular presenter, past Senior Academy Board member and current Senior Academy Board contributor, who loves to travel—be it to foreign countries or to the enigmas of theory, such as infinity.
Join us by registering at https://VillagesSA.org or by calling Diane Taylor at 408-912-5594.
