HISTORY OF SET THEORY

Prepared by: Jeron B. Mina

MS Mathematics Education
 Who is
Georg Cantor?
Real Name: Georg Ferdinand Ludwig
Philipp Cantor
Born: March 3, 1845 (Saint
Petersburg, Russian Empire
Nationality: German
Alma Mater: Swiss Federal Polytechnic
University of Berlin
Spouse: Vally Guttman
Died: January 6, 1918
(age of 72 – due to fatal heart attack)
• The idea of infinity had
been the subject of deep
thought from the time of
the Greeks.

• Zeno of Elea made an early

contribution with his problems
on the infinite.
• Pythagoras of Samos
associated the good and the
evil to the limited and
unlimited, respectively.
• Aristotle said that, “the infinite
is perfect, unfinished and
therefore, unthinkable; it is
formless and confused.”
• Cantor's work had put set theory came on a
proper mathematical basis.
• Cantor's early work was in number theory and he
published a number of articles on this topic
between 1867 and 1871 which changed the
whole course of mathematics.
 Cantor’s Work on Number Theory

• Cantor submitted his dissertation on number theory

at the University of Berlin in 1867.
• After teaching briefly in a Berlin girls' school, Cantor
took up a position at the University of Halle, where he
spent his entire career.
• He was awarded the requisite habilitation for his
thesis, also on number theory, which he presented in
1869 upon his appointment at Halle University.
 • In1872, Georg Cantor, whose early
works were number theory, visited
Switzerland where he met Richard
Dedekind and a friendship between
them grew that lasted for many
years.

Richard Dedekind

• Theletters they exchanged were evidences of

Dedekind’s deep abstract logical way of thinking
which influenced Cantor in his ideas about set
theory.
• From 1873-1879, Cantor’s idea was developed as
influenced by Richard Dedekind’s deep abstract
logical way of thinking. He from number theory to
papers on trigonometric series.
• These papers contain Cantor's first ideas on set
theory and also important results on irrational
numbers.
• Dedekind was working independently on irrational
numbers and Dedekind published Continuity and
irrational numbers.
• In 1874, Cantor published an article “On a
Characteristic Property of All Real Algebraic
Numbers” in Crelle's Journal which marks the birth of
set theory. Because of this Cantor was considered the
father of set theory.

• A follow-up paper was submitted by

Cantor to Crelle's Journal in 1878 but
already set theory was becoming
the center of controversy. Kronecker,
who was on the editorial staff of
Crelle's Journal, was unhappy about
the revolutionary new ideas
contained in Cantor's paper.

Leopold Kronecker
 • Cantor was tempted to withdraw
the paper but Dedekind
persuaded Cantor not to
withdraw it and Weierstrass
supported publication.

Karl Weierstrass

• Thepaper was published but Cantor never

submitted any further work to Crelle's Journal.
• In his 1874 paper, Cantor considers at least two
different kinds of infinity.
• Before this orders of infinity did not exist but all
infinite collections were considered “the same
size”.
• However Cantor examines the set of algebraic real
numbers, that is the set of all real roots of equations
of the form
an xn + an-1 xn-1 + an-2 xn-2 + . . . + a1 x + a0 = 0,

where ai is an integer.
• Cantor proves that the algebraic real numbers are
in one-one correspondence with the natural
numbers in the following way.
• For an equation of the above form define its index
to be

|an| + |an-1| + |an-2| + ... + |a1| + |a0| + n.

 ✓There is only one equation of index 2,
namely x = 0.
✓There are 3 equations 2of index 3, namely 2x = 0,
x + 1 = 0, x - 1 = 0 and x = 0.
✓These give roots 0, 1, -1.
✓For each index there are only finitely many
equations and so only finitely many roots.
• Putting them in 1-1 correspondence with the
natural numbers is now clear but ordering them in
order of index and increasing magnitude within
each index.
• In the same paper Cantor shows that the real
numbers cannot be put into one-one
correspondence with the natural numbers using an
argument with nested intervals which is more
complex than that used today (which is in fact due
to Cantor in a later paper of 1891).
• Cantor now remarks that this proves a theorem due
to Liouville, namely that there are infinitely many
transcendental (i.e. not algebraic) numbers in each
interval.
✓Example of transcendental: π and e
• In his next paper, the one that Cantor had problems
publishing in Crelle's Journal, Cantor introduces the
idea of equivalence of sets and says two sets are
equivalent or have the same power if they can be
put in 1-1 correspondence. The word “power” was
taken by Cantor from Steiner.

• He proves that the rational numbers have the

smallest infinite power and also shows that Rn has the
same power as R. He shows further that countably
many copies of R still has the same power as R.
• At this stage Cantor does not use the word
countable, but he was to introduce the word in a
paper of 1883.
• Cantor published a six part treatise on set theory
from the years 1879 to 1884.
✓This work appears in Mathematische Annalen
and it was a brave move by the editor to publish
the work despite a growing opposition to
Cantor's ideas.
✓The leading figure in the opposition was
Kronecker who was an extremely influential
figure in the world of mathematics.
 • Kronecker's criticism was built on the fact that he
believed only in constructive mathematics. He
only accepted mathematical objects that could
be constructed finitely from the intuitively given set
of natural numbers.

• When Lindemann proved that p is

transcendental in 1882 Kronecker said
“Of what use is your beautiful
investigation ofp. Why study such
problems when irrational numbers do
not exist.”
Ferdinand von Lindemann

• Certainly Cantor's array of different infinities were

impossible under this way of thinking.
• Cantor however continued with his work. His fifth
work in the six part treatise was published in 1883
and discusses well-ordered sets. Ordinal numbers
are introduced as the order types of well-ordered
sets.
• Multiplication and addition of transfinite numbers
are also defined in this work although Cantor was
to give a fuller account of transfinite arithmetic in
later work.
• Cantor claimed that mathematics is quite free and
any concepts may be introduced subject only to
the condition that they are free of contradiction
and defined in terms of previously accepted
concepts.
• He also cites many previous
authors who had given
opinions on the concept of
infinity including Aristotle,
Descartes, Berkeley, Leibniz
and Bolzano.
• The year 1884 was one of crisis
for Cantor. He was unhappy
with his position at Halle and
would have liked to move to
Berlin. However this move was
blocked by Schwarz and
Kronecker. Hermann Schwarz
• In 1884 Cantor wrote 52 letters to
Mittag-Leffler each one of which
attacked Kronecker. In this year of
mental crisis Cantor seemed to
lose confidence in his own work
and applied to lecture on
philosophy rather than on
mathematics.
• In 1885 Cantor continued to
extend his theory of cardinal
numbers and of order types.
• He extended his theory of order Mittag-Leffler

types so that now his previously

defined ordinal numbers became
a special case.
 • The crisis did not last too long and by
early 1885 Cantor was recovered
and his faith in his own work had
returned. However, despite a wealth
of important work in the years after
1884, there is some indication that
he never quite reached the heights
of genius that his remarkable papers
showed over the 10 year period from
1874 to 1884.
• In 1889, Giuseppe Peano introduced
the symbol “ϵ” as a notation for “is
Giuseppe Peano
an element of” in the language of
set theory.
• In 1895 and 1897, Cantor published his
final double treatise in set theory. It
contains an introduction that looks like
a modern book on set theory, defining
set, subset, etc. Cantor proves that if A
and B are sets with A equivalent to a
subset of B and B equivalent to a
subset of A then A and B are
equivalent.
Felix Bernstein

• This theorem was also proved by

Felix Bernstein and independently by
E Schröder.

Ernst Schröder
 • In 1897 the first published paradox
appeared, published by Cesare
Burali-Forti.
✓Some of the impact of this
paradox was lost since Burali-Forti
got the definition of a well-ordered
set wrong!
• However, even if the definition was
corrected, the paradox remained. It
Cesare Burali-Forti basically revolves round the set of all
ordinal numbers.
✓The ordinal number of the set of
all ordinals must be an ordinal and
this leads to a contradiction.
• Itis believed that Cantor discovered this paradox
himself in 1885 and wrote to Hilbert about it in 1886.
✓This is slightly surprising since Cantor was highly
critical of the Burali-Forti paper when it appeared.
• The year 1897 was important for Cantor in another
way, for in that year the first International Congress of
Mathematicians was held in Zurich and at that
conference Cantor's work was held in the highest
esteem being praised by many including Hurwitz and
Hadamard.
• In 1899 Cantor discovered another paradox which arises
from the set of all sets.
What is the cardinal number of the set of all sets?
✓Clearly it must be the greatest possible cardinal yet
the cardinal of the set of all subsets of a set always has
a greater cardinal than the set itself.
✓It began to look as if the criticism of Kronecker might
be at least partially right since extension of the set
concept too far seemed to be producing the
paradoxes.
✓The “ultimate” paradox was found by Russell in 1902
(and found independently by Zermelo).
✓It simplify defined a set
A = { X | X is not a member of X }.
• Russellthen asked :Is A an
element of A?
✓Both the assumption that A is a
member of A and A is not a
member of A lead to a
contradiction.
✓The set construction itself
appears to give a paradox.
Bertrand Russel
 • Russell wrote to Frege telling him
about the paradox. Frege had been
near completion of his major treatise
on the foundations of arithmetic.
Frege added an acknowledgement
to his treatise.
“A scientist can hardly meet with
anything more undesirable than to
have the foundation give way just
as the work is finished. In this position
I was put by a letter from Mr
Bertrand Russell as the work was
Gottlob Frege nearly through the press”
• By this stage, however, set theory
was beginning to have a major
impact on other areas of
mathematics.
✓Lebesgue defined 'measure' in
1901 and in 1902 defined the
Lebesgue integral using set
theoretic concepts.
Henri Lebesgue
✓Analysis needed the set theory of Cantor, it
could not afford to limit itself to intuitionist style
mathematics in the spirit of Kronecker.

✓Rather than dismiss set theory because of the

paradoxes, ways were sought to keep the main
features of set theory yet eliminate the
paradoxes.
• Did the paradoxes come from the “Axiom of
choice”?
✓Cantor had used the 'Axiom of choice' without
feeling that it was necessary to single it out for any
special treatment.
✓The first person to explicitly note that he was using
such an axiom seems to have been Peano in 1890
in dealing with an existence proof for solutions to a
system of differential equations.
✓Again in 1902 it was
mentioned by Beppo Levi
but the first to formally
introduce the axiom was
Zermelo when he proved, in
1904, that every set can be
well-ordered.

Beppo Levi

✓This theorem had been

conjectured by Cantor. Émile
Borel pointed out that the
Axiom of Choice is in fact
Émile Borel
equivalent to Zermelo's
Theorem.
• Gödel showed, in 1940, that the
Axiom of Choice cannot be
disproved using the other axioms
of set theory. It was not until 1963
that Paul Cohen proved that the
Axiom of Choice is independent of
the other axioms of set theory.
Kurt Gödel
• Russell's paradox had undermined the whole of
mathematics in Frege's words.
✓Russell, trying to repair the damage, made an
attempt to put mathematics back onto an
logical basis in his major work Principia
Mathematica written with Whitehead.
✓This work attempts to reduce the foundations of
mathematics to logic and was extremely
influential.
✓However the method of avoiding the paradoxes
by introducing a 'theory of types' made it
impossible to say that a class was or was not a
member of itself. It did not seem a very
satisfactory way around the problems and others
sought different ways.
• Zermelo in 1908 was the first to
attempt an axiomatization of set
theory.
✓Many other mathematicians
attempted to axiomatize set
theory.
✓Fraenkel, von Neumann,
Bernays and Gödel are all
important figures in this
development.
✓Gödel showed the limitations of Ernst Zermelo
any axiomatic theory and the
aims of many mathematicians
such as Frege and Hilbert could
never be achieved.
 • In 1922, Abraham A. Fraenkel
improved Zermelo’s Theorem, thus
making it Zarmelo-Fraenkel Theory of
Sets. This Theory is composed of nine
axioms defining the basic concepts
of set theory.
• Nowadays, mathematicians
consider Zermelo-Fraenkel Theory of
sets as either ZF (Zermelo-Fraenkel set
theory, omitting the Axiom of
Abraham A. Fraenkel
Choice) or ZFC (Zermelo-Fraenkel set
theory, extended to include the
Axiom of Choice).
References:
• School of Mathematics and Statistics (n.d.). Biographies. MacTutor.
Retrieved from https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014). Set theory. Retrieved
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theory/#:~:text=Set%20theory%2C%20as%20a%20separate,counted
%20using%20the%20natural%20numbers.
• Najera, J. (2019). Set Theory - History and Overview. Retrieved from
https://towardsdatascience.com/set-theory-history-overview-
c98bac98f99c
• Pintor, C. (1932). A book of Set Theory. Retrieved from
http://matematicas.uis.edu.co/adrialba/sites/default/files/SetTheory
Dover-%20Charles%20C%20Pinter.pdf
• Johnson, P. (1970). THE EARLY BEGINNINGS OF SET THEORY. The
Mathematics Teacher, 63(8), 690-692. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27958491
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007). The Early
Development of Set theory. Retrieved from
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/settheory-early/
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Retrieved from https://mathshistory.st-
andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Beginnings_of_set_theory/