\u201cHave you ever thought about how strange it is that we think about infinity every day, but most people think about it only on the rarest of occasions, if ever?\u201d This is the text message I recently sent two of my close friends, who also happen to be mathematicians in my department. I was deep in the midst of studying for preliminary exams, trying to prove Riemann\u2019s Theorem on removable singularities, when I started to think \u2013 really think \u2013 about infinity.<\/p>\n
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As mathematicians, there are myriad concepts we think about every day that most people do not. Sometimes this is because they are concepts not known about by non-mathematicians\u00a0and sometimes it is because they are not pertinent to them. But infinity? Everyone knows about infinity, but no one really thinks about it. Or at least that was my hunch.\u00a0And, based upon my small [read: VERY small] sample size, I was right. I started texting my close friends outside of the math department, asking them how often they think about infinity. Some said rarely, some said never. This blew my mind. Not because it surprised me, but simply because I couldn\u2019t imagine what life was like without this thought in the back of my head at all times \u2013 that there\u2019s always more.<\/p>\n
This led me to ask myself how I think about infinity. As a child, infinity meant that I could name a number after myself.\u00a0 I remember telling my parents \u201cIf numbers go on forever, then I can name one \u2018Deborah-illion\u2019 and it must exist.\u201d As I thought about my current understanding of infinity, I realized I had not progressed much, despite my mathematical studies, because my first thought was \u201cthere\u2019s always one more.\u201d But then I realized that this implied my concept of infinity was a countable infinity. So I started to think about uncountable things, and I realized that I think about that as always being able to \u201cstuff more in between\u201d \u2013 like how I can choose two real numbers and there are infinitely many more real numbers between them. And then I was overwhelmed with how inadequate my perception of infinity is.<\/p>\n
You see, I believe that we as mathematicians fall into this false sense of security thinking that we understand infinity \u2013 and justifiably so. We can prove when certain properties hold for finite-dimensional vector spaces but not for infinite-dimensional vector spaces. We can think about limits as some variable tends to infinity and even understand this well enough to explain it to our students. We talk about it over coffee and write it in our proofs. We have a cute little symbol that we have mastered writing (but let\u2019s be honest, that took some of us a while) and a Latex code that we all know by heart.\u00a0 We have taken something so big (is big even the right word?) and stuffed it into a small, tangible little package so that we can carry it around in our finite brains and feel like we know something.<\/p>\n
But I think that\u2019s beautiful. Because it\u2019s yet another example of \u201cthe more you know, the more you don\u2019t know.\u201d It reminds me that this whole math thing is way out of my reach, but that if I keep reaching and searching for the little things I can understand \u2013 the lemma on page 23 or the definition at the beginning of lecture \u2013 there is hope that eventually I will be able to use those to prove another lemma, and maybe that will lead to a theorem. It reminds me that there\u2019s always something left to prove, always something I can understand a little better, and that this thing which I have chosen to dedicate my life to will be there as long as I choose to pursue it. Recently I realized how well this concept applies to other areas of life \u2013 for me, it\u2019s my faith and the peace that comes along with knowing that while I\u2019ll never understand all of it, I can cling to what is within my reach and hold on. Maybe for you it\u2019s something else. Either way, I think this is a conversation we need to have. So go to your departmental tea and start a conversation about infinity with your colleagues. Talk to your family and your friends and your barista. Ask them how they think about infinity. I would love to hear what you find out.<\/p>\n