If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Alumni Weekend 2012 UnCommon Core June 1, 2012 Infinity and Beyond Bob Fefferman Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Dean of the Physical Sciences Division. Weird things can happen with infinity—for one thing, it comes in different sizes. The concept of infinity has tantalized and sometimes troubled humankind for ages. In the 1600s, Galileo introduced a modern attitude toward the infinite by proposing that infinity should obey a different arithmetic from finite numbers. In late 19th century, German mathematician Georg Cantor put infinity on a firm logical foundation and demonstrated that infinity can have different sizes, making him one of the most assailed mathematicians in history. Though his work eventually revolutionized mathematics, his ideas were suppressed and he was imprisoned in mental institutions for most of his later life. In this program, mathematician Robert Fefferman will discuss some of the weird and interesting problems posed by our efforts to understand infinity. Robert Fefferman is the Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Dean of the Physical Sciences Division.