TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I was going to record talking... the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb',... and the machine reproduced it perfectly.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index C > Georg Cantor Quotes

Thumbnail of Georg Cantor (source)
Georg Cantor
(3 Mar 1845 - 6 Jan 1918)

German mathematician.


Science Quotes by Georg Cantor (5 quotes)

A set is a Many that allows itself to be thought of as a One.
— Georg Cantor
Quoted in Carol Schumacher, Chapter Zero: Fundamental Notions of Abstract Mathematics (1996), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Many (4)  |  One (6)  |  Set (400)  |  Thought (995)

Mathematics is perfectly free in its development and is subject only to the obvious consideration, that its concepts must be free from contradictions in themselves, as well as definitely and orderly related by means of definitions to the previously existing and established concepts.
— Georg Cantor
In Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Manigfaltigkeitslehre (1883), Sect. 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Definite (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Development (441)  |  Established (7)  |  Existing (10)  |  Free (239)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Previous (17)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)

The essence of mathematics lies in its freedom.
— Georg Cantor
In Mathematische Annalen, Bd. 21, 564.
Science quotes on:  |  Essence (85)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)

The essence of mathematics lies precisely in its freedom.
— Georg Cantor
Gesammelte Abhandlungen (1932), 182, trans. Ivor Grattan-Guinness. Also, givened as: 'The essence of mathematics lies in its freedom,' in Mathematische Annalen, 21, 564. In Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica (1914), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Essence (85)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Precisely (93)

The transfinite numbers are in a sense the new irrationalities [ ... they] stand or fall with the finite irrational numbers.
— Georg Cantor
Gesammelte Abhandlungen (1932),395, trans. Ivor Grattan-Guinness.
Science quotes on:  |  Fall (243)  |  Finite (60)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Sense (785)  |  Stand (284)



Quotes by others about Georg Cantor (1)

No one shall expel us from the paradise which Cantor has created for us.
Expressing the importance of Cantor's set theory in the development of mathematics.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Creation (350)  |  Development (441)  |  Importance (299)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Paradise (15)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Theory (6)  |  Theory (1015)


See also:
  • 3 Mar - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Cantor's birth.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.