A Brief History of Infinity

I was very confused when I started reading Brian Clegg's A Brief History of Infinity. What I had expected was something like the other mathy books I've reviewed, so I was surprised when it spent a lot of time not talking about infinity. It went on irrelevant tangents, talking about science and people and plagues and things. It wasn't even entirely in chronological order.

I later realized that the reason it was so bad at being a math book was that it was a history book. This book is not about teaching you what infinities are, it's about how the ideas of infinity and the infinitesimal evolved over time, and about what people thought of those ideas. Of course, when it talks about the history of infinity, it also talks about the ideas people had about infinity, because "infinity" has meant different things to different people at different times, and now there are even different kinds of infinity. I guess, given that the subject is so complex, A Brief History of Infinity does a great job of getting it across to you.

If you like the idea of infinity, and you also like reading about people's struggles, then you should read this book. Also, if you want to understand all of the infinities in this link (except maybe surreals), then this book is a really good starting point. Also, it's not that long, so you can read the whole thing over like a weekend. Okay, that's all.