The second issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics has recently been posted -- with more new poems. The first issue contained a poem by Philip Holmes about one of the most amazing collections of numbers in all of mathematics, the Cantor Ternary Set. This set, discovered by Henry John Stephen Smith (1826-1883) but popularized by Georg Cantor (1845-1918) consists of all the real numbers whose base 3 or ternary representations involve only the digits 0 and 2. Like a fishing net, the Cantor Ternary Set is mostly holes. "Gaps" by Philip Holmes spreads it out before us -- and reflects on what else it may represent:
Showing posts with label Henry John Stephen Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry John Stephen Smith. Show all posts
Thursday, August 4, 2011
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