The Power of Infinity

Steven Strogatz explains beautifully how the concept of inifinity first tripped up philosophers but then provided them with a powerful tool to calculate things that could not be calculated without taking things to inifity. I wish I had had as good a math teacher as Strogatz. The lesson here is also that Strogatz does not provide a solution to Zeno’s paradox but that he shows that even without fully removing the puzzles around infinity one can use the concept to get more knowledge in other areas.
Read his column Take It to the Limit.