section_path: Mathematics/Set theory
section_name: Set theory
paragraph_text: Set theory
  
  A different form of "infinity" is the ordinal and cardinal infinities of set theory—a system of transfinite numbers first developed by Georg Cantor. In this system, the first transfinite cardinal is aleph-null (ℵ), the cardinality of the set of natural numbers. This modern mathematical conception of the quantitative infinite developed in the late 19th century from works by Cantor, Gottlob Frege, Richard Dedekind and others—using the idea of collections or sets.
  
  Dedekind's approach was essentially to adopt the idea of one-to-one correspondence as a standard for comparing the size of sets, and to reject the view of Galileo (derived from Euclid) that the whole cannot be the same size as the part. (However, see Galileo's paradox where Galileo concludes that positive integers cannot be compared to the subset of positive square integers since both are infinite sets.) An infinite set can simply be defined as one having the same size as at least one of its proper parts; this notion of infinity is called Dedekind infinite. The diagram to the right gives an example: viewing lines as infinite sets of points, the left half of the lower blue line can be mapped in a one-to-one manner (green correspondences) to the higher blue line, and, in turn, to the whole lower blue line (red correspondences); therefore the whole lower blue line and its left half have the same cardinality, i.e. "size".
  
  Cantor defined two kinds of infinite numbers: ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers. Ordinal numbers characterize well-ordered sets, or counting carried on to any stopping point, including points after an infinite number have already been counted. Generalizing finite and (ordinary) infinite sequences which are maps from the positive integers leads to mappings from ordinal numbers to transfinite sequences. Cardinal numbers define the size of sets, meaning how many members they contain, and can be standardized by choosing the first ordinal number of a certain size to represent the cardinal number of that size. The smallest ordinal infinity is that of the positive integers, and any set which has the cardinality of the integers is countably infinite. If a set is too large to be put in one-to-one correspondence with the positive integers, it is called uncountable. Cantor's views prevailed and modern mathematics accepts actual infinity as part of a consistent and coherent theory. Certain extended number systems, such as the hyperreal numbers, incorporate the ordinary (finite) numbers and infinite numbers of different sizes.