First Year Seminar: A Taste of the Infinite

Catalog description

The concept of infinity occurs in many disciplines - philosophy, mathematics, physics, religion, art, and so on. This class will focus on the mathematical aspects of infinity, surveying some of the ways that the infinite arises in mathematics. Topics will include: the sizes of infinity, rates of growth, computational complexity, construction of the real numbers, the notion of compactness, geometric spaces, transcendental numbers, and fractal sets. I will not assume any prior knowledge of mathematics beyond a good grounding in high school algebra and geometry.