Infinite: “The infinite mercy of God.”
Adrian Moore journeys through philosophical thought on infinity over the last two and a half thousand years in this BBC Radio 4 program. Perhaps no concept has inspired and perplexed thinkers as much as the infinite. It has always been of interest to philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, and theologians; however, it has also been associated with various paradoxes going back at least to the Ancient Greeks.
What exactly is the infinite? Is there more than one concept? How do we acquire the idea of the infinite? Can it coherently be thought at all? What did Aristotle mean by ‘potential infinity’ versus ‘actual infinity’? What did Cantor mean by claiming that some infinities are bigger than others? Do infinities actually exist in the physical universe? Are space and time infinite? And what does reflection on the infinite reveal about our own finitude and our very place in the universe? These are just a few of the issues that are touched upon in this series. Many thinkers are discussed in the process, including Zeno, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Newton, Leibniz, Cantor, Russell, Gödel, and various others.
Infinity: Infinity represents something that is boundless or endless, or else something that is larger than any real or natural number. It is often denoted by the infinity.