🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Feb 26
The Man Who Stole Infinity, by Joseph Howlett
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-stole-infinity-20260225/
Demian Goos finally tracked down Dedekind's copies of letters he sent to Cantor, showing that Cantor on at least two occasions published papers on orders of infinity, based in part on Dedekind's work, without crediting him. The letters had been preserved by Dedekind's heirs, and were made available to Goos by Karin Richter.
#mathematics #infinity #continuum #Cantor #Dedekind
The Man Who Stole Infinity | Quanta Magazine

In an 1874 paper, Georg Cantor proved that there are different sizes of infinity and changed math forever. A trove of newly unearthed letters shows that it was also an act of plagiarism.

Quanta Magazine
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Feb 26
The article explains one reason Georg Cantor didn't credit Richard Dedekind for the first paper: politics of mathematics publishing. Dedekind was on Leopold Kronecker's shit list, and Kronecker was on the editorial board of Crelle’s Journal.
Show threadDavid, a Bostonian in Tokyo.Feb 26

@brouhaha

And a quick read made it sound that Cantor's proof was _correct but ugly_, and given a correct but ugly proof, Dedekind came up with a better proof.

So it's still Cantor's idea that Cantor proved.

Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Feb 26
@djl
Cantor published Dedekind's proofs. Dedekind did the proofs in response to Cantor's prior attempts. Even if you think Dedekimd only improved Cantor's proofs (which was not my takeaway from the article), at the very least Dedekind should have been listed as a coauthor.
Today, something like this could get a published academic paper retracted, and disciplinary action taken, possibly including termination of professorship (even if tenured).
Show threadActive Mouse

@brouhaha @djl my understanding was that cantor's first attempt was incorrect, but his second was correct, then Dedekind simplified it. That certainly deserves correct attribution but it seems obvious why it wasn't.

Inspired by this I went off to read Dedekind's 1888 monograph on foundations of Arithmetic and it's very readable! Though without a doubt it too has been refined now.

I had no idea how important Dedekind was to the beginnings of set theory!

Feb 26 at 8:40pmWeb
Show threadDavid, a Bostonian in Tokyo.Feb 27

@ActiveMouse @brouhaha

Yes. That's a more careful reading.

In any case, the clickbait headline was obnoxious.

Dedekind's a biggy in a wide range of mathy things (rings (!!!), fields, ideals, irrational numbers, algebraic numbers). He's got plenty on his resume and doesn't need Cantor's results as well.

Show threadActive MouseFeb 27

@djl @brouhaha once you've constructed the real numbers from the rationals in a novel way you can pretty much retire.

I don't know if Dedekind or Cantor (or Bolzano?) first constructed the natural numbers from sets, but a construction is there in the 1888 treatise. It's interesting to see the approaches to infinity in these early works. I think you can see echoes of the later axiomatisation of infinity in the fact that Dedekind "proves" the existence of an infinite set by reference to his own realm of thought!