Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Cantor, a devout Lutheran, believed the theory had been communicated to him by God.[5] Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected.
Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Cantor, a devout Lutheran, believed the theory had been communicated to him by God.[5] Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected.
Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Cantor, a devout Lutheran, believed the theory had been communicated to him by God.[5] Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected.
GEORG CANTOR
His Mathematics and
Philosophy of the Infinite
Joseph Warren DaubenGEORG CANTOR
His Mathematics and Philosophy
of the Infinite
Joseph Warren Dauben
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEYPublished by Princeion University Press,
4| Wiltarn Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
Copyright @ §979 by the President and Fellows
of Harvard College
All Rights Reserved
First Princeton Paperback printing, 1990
Reprinted by arrangement with the author
and Harvard University Press
Library of Congress Cataloging: in-Publication Data
Danben, Joseph Warren, 1944.
Georg Cantor: his mathematics and philosophy of the infinie!
Joseph Warres Dauben.
p. cm.
Reprint. Originally published: Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1979,
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN @.691-08583-8 (cloth)
ISBN 0-69 1-02447.2 (paper)
|. Set theory-——-History. 2, Numbers, Transfinite:-tHstory.
3. Cantor, Georg, 1845-1918. 4. Infinite. |. Title.
QA248.D27 1990
SI13'22°09—ae20 OO. 8579
Princeton University Press books are printed on acid: free paper.
and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
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0 9 8
Printed in the United States of AmericaFOR MY PARENTS,
FOR ELAINE,
AND FOR DAVIDAcknowledgments
Henry Adams once wrote that if Harvard College gave nothing else, it gave
calm. Though some might assess Harvard's recent past somewhat differently, I
am nevertheless indebted to Harvard University for six years of study, teaching,
and research, made possibie in part by a Harvard Graduate Prize Fellowship. I
am further indebted to Harvard for providing me with a University Traveling
Fellowship, and to the National Science Foundation for a dissertation grant
which supported a year of archival research in Germany, Sweden, and Italy
during the academic year 1970-71. Generous support from the Faculty Re-
search Foundation of the City University of New York and a grant from the
Mellon Foundation have also helped make this book possibie.
Of the many librarians and archivists who gave willingly of their time and
help, special appreciation is due to Dr. Herta Battré of the Akademie der
Wissenschaften der DDR (Berlin) for her patience in guiding me through the
early and perplexing adjustment to problems of German handwriting and the
idiosyncrasies of individual penmanships. Similarly, 1 am grateful to Dr.
Schippang of the Handschriftenabteilung and the Darmstaedter Sammlung of
the Staatsbibjiothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin, Dahlem), and to Dr.
Haenel of the Handschriftenabteilung of the Niedersachsische Staats- und
Universitatsbibliothek, Gottingen, for their help and interest in my archival
research. ln Dyirshofm, Sweden, Dr. Lennart Carleson generously arranged
accommodations for the month | spent at the Institut Mittag-Leffler, including
an office in the institute, which allowed maximai use of the archive and library
there. | am also grateful to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and to the
American Academy in Rome for the use of their libraries and research facilities.
In particular, 1 am happy to thank Janice and Norman Rosenthal of New YorkVLE
City, who offered peace and quiet in Porto Ercole, where the final version of
this manuscript was written.
For permission to consult the documents surviving in the estate of Georg
Cantor, Tam pleased to acknowledge the kind cooperation of Oberstudienrat
Wilhelm Stahl of Bad Godesberg, Germany. Professor Herbert Meschkowski,
who was always willing to discuss matters of Cantor’s life and work, offered me
materials from his personal library, including two dozen letters written by the
Halle mathematician Eduard Heine to H. A. Schwarz, several of which are
reproduced in the appendixes. F am also prateful to Mrs. Lily Riidenberg for
allowing me to examine the correspondence between her father, Hermann
Minkowski, and David Hilbert, before they were made available in the edition
recently published by Professor Hans Zassenhaus. Additional acknowledgment
of archival and library sources used in the course of research for this book can be
found at the beginning of the appendixes.
In one form or another, parts of the typescript have been read by Professors
Kurt-R. Biermann, the late Carl Boyer, Richard Brauer, 1. Bernard Cohen,
Thomas Hawkins, John Murdoch, and imré Toth. Their comments and sugges-
tions have helped sharpen at many points the acumen of both my expression and
my exposition. For he!p with translation, | am especially indebted to Professor
John D. Poynter, who first taught me German and who has been a continuous
source of encouragement and inspiration from the time | was one of his students
at Claremont. | am grateful for his help in adding precision and fiteracy to the
Engish translations supplied throughout this book.
Similarly, Professors John Murdoch and Judy Grabiner were the major
forces guiding my preparation in the history of mathematics, and their help and
encouragement define in great measure the direction and nature of my interests
generally. | also owe special thanks to my two readers, Professor Erwin Hiebert
of Harvard University and Professor Emeritus Dirk J. Struik of the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology, for overseeing the general development of my
doctoral dissertanon (‘The Early Development of Cantorian Set Theory,”
Harvard University, 1972), which was devoted to material comprising much of
the first six chapters of this book.
A major debt [ shall never be able to repay belongs to Dr. Ivor Grattan-
Guinness, Hertfordshire, England, who has always been generous with his
time, merciless with his criticisms, and indispensable with his encouragement.
E appreciate in particular his continuing interest and advice and his willingness
to provide me with copies of his own papers long before they were published.
Equally valuable has been the advice and criticism of my colleague Professor
Esther Phillips of Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New
York. Her scrutiny of the final typescript has saved me from many an oversight
or imprecision.
One last expression of my appreciation must be added, one of special
importance to me, and one | have made before. In 1972 1 dedicated myIX,
dissertation to Professor and Mrs. 1. Bernard Cohen, to Professor Dr. and Mrs.
Kuc-R. Biermann, and to Dr. and Mrs. Ivar Grattan-Guinness, for their
conlinuing Interest, support, and friendship. Over the years since leaving
Harvard, my gratitude to them has only deepened, and 1 am happy to acknew!l-
edge their special importance to me once again.
A final word te Vivian H. Breitel and to David F. Grose, who patiently
followed the entire course of this book from beginning to end. That it ts finally
finished is due as much to their efforts as to anyone's. They proved to be
indefatigable sources of inspiration, solace. and sympathy, and with boundless
affection and appreciation, my ultimate thanks are to them.Contents
Introduction
Preludes in Analysis
The Origins of Cantorian Set Theory: Trigonometric Series,
Real Numbers, and Derived Sets
Denumerability and Dimension
Cantor’s Early Theory of Point Sets
The Mathematics of Cantor’s Grundlagen
Cantor's Philosophy of the Infinite
From the Grundlagen to the Beitrage, 1883-1895
The Beitrige, Part 1: The Study of Simpiy-Ordered Sets
The Beitrdge, Part I: The Study of Well-Grdered Sets
The Foundations and Philosophy of Cantorian Set Theory
The Paradoxes and Problems of Post-Cantorian Set Theory
Epilogue: The Significance of Cantor's Personality
Appendixes: Previously Unpublished Correspondence
Notes
Bibliography
Index
30
47
77
95
120
149
169
194
219
240
ari
303
315
36]
385Cantor with his wife, Vally, about 1880.
In the possession of Egbert Schneider.in re mathematica ars proponendi quaestionem
pluris facienda est quam solvendi
-—-Georg CanterIntroduction
Georg Cantor (1845 -1918), the creator of transfinite set theory, is one of the
most imaginative and controversial figures in the history of mathematics.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century his study of continuity and the infinite
eventually forced him to depart radically from standard interpretations and use
of infinity in mathematics. Because his views were unorthodox, they stimulated
lively debate and at times vigorous denunciation. Leopold Kronecker consid-
ered Cantor a scientific charlatan, a renegade, a “corrupter of youth,” but
Bertrand Russell described him as one of the greatest intellects of the nineteenth
century. David Hilbert believed Cantor had created a new paradise for
mathematicians, though others, notably Henri Poincaré, thought set theory and
Cantor’s transfinite numbers represented a grave mathematical malady, a
perverse pathological illness that would one day be cured.* Both in hisown time
and in the years since, Cantor’s name has signified both controversy and
schism. Ultimately, transfinite set theory has served to divide mathematicians
inte distant camps determined largely by their irreconcilable views of the nature
of mathematics in general and of the status of the infinite in particular.
Like many controversial figures in history, Cantor was often misunderstood,
notontly by his contemporaries, but by later biographers and historians as well,
This is particularly clear from the myths which have arisen concerning his
personality and his nervous breakdowns. [n his own day Cantor was regarded as
an eccentric, if exciting, man, who apparently stimulated interest wherever he
went, particularly ameng younger mathematicians. But it was the mathemati-
cian and historian E.T. Bell who popularized the portrait of a man whose
problems and insecurities stemmed from Freudian antagonisms with his father
and whose relationship with his archrival Leopold Kronecker was exacerbated
because both men were Jewish.* In fact, Cantor was not Jewish. He was born
and bapuzed a Lutheran and was a devout Christian during his entire life.’2 GEORG CANTOR
Equally unreliahle are Beil’s assertions about Cantor's mental illness. Bell’s
interpretation deserves to be reevaluated net only because it has been uncriti-
cally accepted by so many mathematicians and historians, including the late
Bertrand Russell, but because newly discovered evidence makes it possible to
assess the nature and significance of Cantor’s breakdowns more accurately and
in a manner consistent with his biography and intellectual development.* In
fact, Cantor’s cycles of manic depression contributed in a unique and bereto-
fore unsuspected way to his own interpretation of the nature of transfinite set
theory itself (see Chapter 12).
In order to justify this revised interpretation of Cantor's personality, te
explain the significance of his manic depression, and to suggest how both were
intimately connected to very deep theological preoccupations which were
always uppermost in Cantor’s mind, it is necessary to go beyond materials
currently available in print concerning his tife and work. Regrettably, the
unpuhlished documents relating to his family and career are less abundant than
might be expected, considering the fact that his importance as one of the
world’s leading mathematicians was recognized in hts own lifetime and well
before his death in 1918. Nevertheless, shortly after World War |, his library
was sold, Some of his papers and letters remained in the hands of his children,
who continued to live in the family house on Handelstrasse in Halle, Germany
(DDR). Then, during World War I], much of Cantor’s literary estate was lost.
Before the war, for example, there were twenty letter-books in which he had
drafted his correspondence. But in 1945 Cantor’s house was occupied, the
family was forced to leave, and following the occupation many of Cantor’s
papers were missing, and only three of the twenty letter-books were to be
found.®
This is particularly unfortunate, since it is largely through his corre-
spondence that it is possible to study the evolution of Cantor's mathematical
ideas before publication. Loss of the letter-books, however, is not so grave as it
might be. Often the mathematicians to whom Cantor wrote kept his letters, and
many of these are now preserved in various archives and private coliections. it
is particularly fortunate that in virtually every productive period of Cantar’s
career, there was at least (and usually only} one mathematician to whom be
would write in detail about his work and in whom he would confide. it is
doubtless a reflection on Cantor's personality that his friendships were often
intense but of relatively short duration. For example, his friendship with H.A.
Schwarz came to a premature end, although letters which the two exchanged in
the carly 1876s demonstrate that Schwarz gave Cantor a good deai of encour-
agement and even some fundamental techniques which were successfully
applied in Cantor's eartiest werk on trigonometric series. Equatly valuable in
documenting the earliest development of Cantorian set theory are letters written
by Cantor to Dedekind between 1872 and 1879. Their friendship, however, fell
by the way shortly thereafter, apparently over Cantor’s resentment of Dede-Introduction 3
kind’s refusal to accept a position at the university in Halle.? But by then the
Swedish mathematician Gésta Mittag-Leffler had become Cantor's confidant,
He was one of the first mathematicians to take an active interest in Cantor’s set
theory, since he had found Cantor’s work essential for results of his own. More
important for the future of wansfinite set theory, Mittag-Leffler did all he could
as editor of the journal Acta Mathematica to promote Canter’s work and
through translations to help make it known outside Germany. Buteven this very
important relationship was not to last. By 1887 Cantor had ended their profes-
sional collaboration and even refused to publish in Acta Mathematica because
of Mittag-Leffler’s suggestion that he not print a premature version of his
general theory of order types.* Thereafter, Cantor began to diversify his
interests and included among his correspondents theologians, philosophers,
and even a circle of literati interested in proving that Bacon was the true author
of Shakespeare’s plays. He wrote at length to students like Franz Goldscheider
and to mathematicians like Felix Klein, editor of Mathematische Annalen. \t
was Klein who published Cantor’s last major work, the Beimage Zur Begriin-
dung der transfiniten Mengentehre (1895-1897). Cantor’s letters to Kiein have
been particularly helpful in documenting many of the philosophical and
mathematical developments that occurred in this very important phase of
Cantor's work, preceding publication of the Bef#age. In addition to these,
drafts of Cantor’s letters to figures like Giuseppe Peano, Charles Hermite,
Philip Jourdain, and Grace Chisholm Young (among others) provide valuable
information as to how and why Cantor worked as he did.
Until recently, no study of Cantor’s life and work went beyond Adolf
Fraenkel’s lengthy obituary, written in 1930 for the Deutsche Mathematiker-
Vereinigung.* Thereafter, most historians of mathematics have been content to
follow Fraenkel’s account, or worse, to believe the stories written by E.T, Bell,
who based much of his work on Fraenkel’s but with additional ill-founded
embellishments of his own. *”
There are two notable exceptions, however, and the research presented here
owes a good deal to both. In 1967 Herbert Meschkowski published his book
Probleme des Unendlichen; Werk und Leben Georg Cantors, easily the most
informative guide to Cantor’s life and work available since the outdated efforts
of Jourdain and Fraenkel.'' Shortly thereafter, Ivor Grattan-Guinness pub-
lished his discovery of a previously unknown Cantor manuscript and followed
that with his article ‘Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor.” ? The corpus of
Cantor’s writings, published by Zermelo in a collected edition, has been
available to German readers since 1932. But English readers have for the most
part been unaware of the very interesting works, in part philosophical and
theological, which preceded Cantor's best known publication, his Beiirdge of
1895 and 1897, translated into English by P. E. B. Jourdain in 1915 and
provided with a lengthy informative preface.
As Jourdain realized, Cantor’s mind was a fertile source of provocative ideas4 GEORG CANTOR
which profoundly influenced the history of moderna mathematics. As a histori-
cally minded mathematician, Jourdain exchanged a number of letters with
Cantor and probed specifically the motives and ongins of Cantor's set-theoretic
research.’* For anyone concerned with intellectual history, in fact, the de-
velopment of Cantorian set theory may be regarded as a microcosm in which the
nature of the creation and development of a significant new idea of science may
be studied, [t provides a mode} that is ideal in many respects. Cantor's
revolution of the mathematical infinite was created almost single-handedly, in
the space of a few years. Original opposition and rejection of his work, not only
by mathematicians, but by philosophers and theologians, eventually gave way
to acceptance by some and to wholly new theories and domains of study
undertaken by others.
The eminent historian of science Alexandre Koyré liked to emphasize the
difficulties in conception and philosophy that accompanied the revolutionary
shift in thisking required of the Renaissance thinkers.'’ Their transition in
advancing from the closed world of Aristotle’s universe to the infinite world of
the post-Copernican era was in many respects a painful and traumatic one, but
profound in its imptications for the subsequent history of Wester thought. The
development of Cantorian set theory offers a close comparison of similar events
and responses, though in another place and in another time. While none of the
major participants in the modern attempt to move from a closed mathematical
universe into a surprisingly and complexly infinite one was ever bumed at the
stake, George Cantor, ina less dramatic way, faced inquisition and repudiation
at the hands of many of his contemporaries. University and Church were to
weigh the evidence as carefully as any Galilean trial, and though the verdicts
were never formalized, Cantor's work was given careful scrutiny and equally
rigorous criticism and interpretation (see Chapter 6).
It is well to remember that this book is neither the biography of a man, nor
even the history of a single idea, although it does focus on the mathematics of
Georg Cantor and specifically upon the background, emergence, and develap-
ment of his theory of sets and transfinite numbers. Perhaps the best way to
describe what I have atternpted is to say that this book represents a study of the
pulse, metabolism, even in part the psychodynamics of an intellectual process:
the emergence of a new mathematical theory. To be sure, the history of set
theory and Cantor’s own work provide the maior foundations for what follows,
but E have attempted to go beyond names, dates, and theorems to show how and
why a new scientific theory emerges, the proklems it faces, and the evolution,
resolution, changing assumptions necessary for its eventual acceptance into the
farger body of legitimate theory. At the same time, it is a tribute to the
mathematician whose mind and imagination made transfinite set theory pessi-
ble, and more than possible, something very real, bearing the stamp of his own
perspectives and personality. To borrow the phraseology of the critic John
Ciardi, the ultimate and underlying motivation of the present analysis hasIntroduction 4
always been an answer to the admittedly broad question, Aow does a theory
mean? The present investigation of the ways in which the mathematics and
philosophy of set theory have come to mean what they do today concentrates
upon the early efforts and mspiration of one man in particular: Georg Cantor.CHAPTER |
Preludes in Analysis
Georg Cantor’ s creation of transfinite set theory was an achievement of major
consequence in the history of mathematics. Among his earliest papers was a
series of articles that began to appear in 1870 and that dealt with a major
problem concerning trigonometric series.’ Functional analysis, in fact, spurred
Cantor's interest in point sets and inspired his discovery of transfinite numbers.
Set theory, at least im part, was produced in response to Bernhard Riemann’s
highty fertile investigations of trigonometric series and the related study of
discontinuous functions. Interest in such functions ied in a very natural way to
the examination of point sets over domains of definition where discontinuities
of various kinds occurred.
Cantor, however, was not the first to introduce special point sets for the sake
of such investigations. Dirichlet, Riemann, and to a greater extent, Lipschitz
and Hankel, had all written on various aspects of the subject, especially upon
sets of points for which cerlain functions were either discontinuous or for which
questions of convergence became difficult. But it was only Cantor who sys-
tematically developed the myriad implications of point sets in general, and who
produced an entirely new field of mathematical research in the process.
GUSTAV PETER LEJEUNE DIRICHLET, 1805-1859
In 1829 Dirichlet, who was among the first contributors to Crelle’s
Journal, published an article dealing with the convergence problem of Fourier’ s
series.* Joseph Fourier, in his celebrated studies on the conductivity of heat,
had established that arbitrarily given functions could be represented by
trigonometric series with coefficients of a specified type, and subsequently
these became known as Fourier series. This discovery startled mathematicians
and opened a new era of research in analysis. Though Fourier brought greater
rigor to his mathematics than is generally recognized, his work neverthelessPreludes in Analysis 7
raised more questions than he was interested in answering or capable of
solving.* Following Fourier, A. L. Cauchy advanced results of his own, but
Dirichlet was not satisfied. He was anxious to establish the theory of Fourier
series with greater rigor and clarity.
Cauchy, for example, had written the only article known to Dirichlet that
attempted to deal with Fourier series in general terms. This had appeared in
the Mémoires de ? Académie des Sciences de Paris for the year 1823. Though
Cauchy had to admit that he had failed with some functions for which con-
vergence was nevertheless incontestable, Dirichlet found that certain
arguments were insufficient even in cases for which Cauchy had thought
his methods were successful.* For example, although Cauchy had shown
that the terms of a given series g(a) were decreasing, Dirichlet stressed
that this was far from proving that the same terms formed a convergent
series. Cauchy had established that the ratio of the ath term of the series
A Sin_nx
Hi
and the quantity , where A was a constant determined by the ex-
treme values of the function, differed from +1 by a quantity which diminished
indefinitely as n became increasingty large. From this result and the con-
clusion that $* A SIX was convergent, Cauchy concluded that the gen-
eral trigonometric series was also convergent. But as Dirichlet was able to
show, particularly in the case of alternating series, this was false, it was
not difficult to produce two series, one convergent, the other divergent,
although the ratio of their mth terms approached +1 as # became very large.
The two series which Dirichlet had in mind were those with general terms
cn "and & on 7" (i+! tie 7 ); the first was convergent, the second was not.
Vn Vn Va
Subtracting the two produced the divergent series ~—1 — SUP Tye
even though the ratio of ath terms of the pwo series, | + ~j- converged as n
n
increased without limit.* Consequently, Cauchy’s method for establishing the
convergence of trigonometric series was far from acceptable.
Related to such difficulties was the question of alternating series. In fact,
Dirichlet was apparently fed to study the behavior of trigonometric series upon
his realization that nondivergent series were of two types, conditionally con-
vergent and absolutely convergent.* He found that certain alternating series
could be shown to converge to different sums, or even to diverge, depending
only upon the arrangement of their terms. He offered as an illustration the two
series:
l-+2+
+
l+=
+
ims py
+
np
L
2
|
3
Mi ole
Pim oni8 GEORG CANTOR
Riemann, in assessing the significance of Dirichlet’s work on trigonometric
series, stressed the impertance of this distinction between conditionally con-
vergent and absolutely convergentseres. Since convergent Fourier series were
not necessarily absolutely convergent, it was impossible to establish the con-
vergence of such series solely from the fact that the terms of the series
continually diminished, which was one of the arguments Cauchy had offered.
Dirichlet, however, reduced the representation problem to consideration of the
integral:
i 818 pipyap
o sin 8 ,
where / was integer-valued, and abstracting sign (Dirichlet’s expression for
absolute value}, the terms were decreasing.* In thus appreciating the necessity
of absolute convergence to ensure unigue summations, Dirichlet was also
underscoring the fact that Fourier’s convergence problem was only one part of a
much larger problem. Convergence could assume many forms, and absolute
convergence was but one, as mathematicians in the nineteenth century were to
discover.
in his effort to establish the conditions for convergence of Fourier series,
Dirichlet began with a simple case, to which others he chose to consider might
be reduced. Narrowing his attention to the interval (0,7/2), where
O< A = 7/2, and assuming f(8) to be continuous on (0,4), monotonically
decreasing yet always positive, he considered the behavior of:
I “sin iB payag
4 si & ,
By insisting that f be positive, and introducing a particular partition of (0,4),
he was eventuaily able to establish, for O< ¢< A= 7/2, that
sin if
sin 8
converged to a definite limit as / increased without limit. The limit was always
zero, unless g = 0, when the integral converged to a value of (9/2)/(0).
With this result in hand, Dirichlet could then prove the convergence of the
Fourier series representing arbitrary functions within given limits. First he
restricted attention to the first 22 + 1 terms of the resulting representation:
(2 | f(B) dg
_L
1.2} + | eta)da +
cos x | oladeos a da +cas 2x | glaoos tad t+...
1
T
sin xf efasin ada +sin 2x | ola sin 2a dat...Preludes in Analysis G
The Dirichlet partial sum could then be rewritten:
aw
of g(ajded} + cos (a ~ x) + cos (2a ~ 2+... + cos nfa — xd].
The cosine series then assumed the well-known form:
e i _
4 gla) sin (n+ 3) {a~2)
W]e Zsin Aa — +}
The central question was thus reduced to evaluating the limit of this integral
as n increased indefinitely. Again, by careful attention to partitioning, Dirichiet
was ahle to refer his argument back to the earlier conclusion for (7.1). In the
final analysis, he showed that the series did in fact converge and was equal to
dix + €) ~ oly ~ €)) for all x on {77,7}, and at the endpoints assumed the
value Hytw — €) + ofa + e)).
Thus, for Dirichlet, a given function f(x) was completely represented hy its
Fourier series whenever the function was continuous, with possible exception
at the endpoints, where f(s) = f(—2r} would ensure representation. Otherwise,
al points of discontinuity, or at an endpoint 77, the function was represented
by the series only when certain additional conditions were fulfilled.
The wnportant question of whick functions actually admitted such repre-
sentations fed to the formulation of what are today known as Dirichlet’s
conditions, and his paper of 1829 was concerned with only those functions
satisfying these conditions:
The preceding considerations prove in a rigorous manner that if the
function g(x) (for which all values are supposed finite and determined)
only presents a finite number of discontinuities between the limits -7
and a, and if in addition it does not have more than a determined number
of maxima and minima between these same limits, then the series {1.2}
(where the coefficients are the definite integrals depending on the func-
tion gix}) is convergent and has a value expressed generally by
Helx +e) + e(x~ €)),
where € designates an infinitely smalt nuriber.*
While Dirichict’s conditions reflected the success with which he had solved
the question of convergence of Fourier series and the sufficient canditions for
ensuring representability, they simultaneously characterized, quite succinctly,
the fimitations beyond which there were stil! no answers, Dirichlet, we know,
was unhappy about the restrictions: “But in order to establish this with all the
clarity one could desire,” he wrote, “there are some details conceming funda-
mental principles of infinitesimal analysis which will be treated in another note,iG GEORG CANTOR
in which | shal? also consider some other equally remarkable properties of the
series.""?® Though he never managed to produce a further, more general and
systematic exposition, he did offer certain extensions, both in print, and in his
pfivate correspondence. Two advances are especially noteworthy.
in an addition to a paper of 1837, “Sur les séries dont le terme général dépend
de deux angies, et qui servent 4 exprimer des fonctions arbitraires entre des
limites données,’"'' Dirichlet explained how his earlier assumptions concern-
ing the function /(8) could be relaxed. Earlier he had required that f(@) be
continuous and monotonically increasing or decreasing between the limits of
integration. The more general case allowed the function to be discontinuous and
suspended the monotonic requirement. Furthermore , he showed how the valid-
xy of his restrictions were unaffected by allowing isclated infinities. Supposing
c to be such a singularity in {0,4}, where c # G, Dirichlet considered the four
integrals:
os sin k . sin kB ees sin kB
[0S tha, eee aa. [arn bP ap
sin B
sin KB ug
[so saPas
Earlier results established directly that the first integral converged in value to
dar f{0}, the fourth to zero. For arbitrarily smal! €,
fo fo sin kKBug Fie) ~ Fle ~ e}
sing sin (c—€}
and [ 71 24Bda| < Fer e)- Me).
Since Dirichlet assumed j(x) to be continuous, and c #0, he could easily
conclude that the two integrals were negligible.
Even more impressive was the way in which Dirichlet was able to weaken the
restrictions concerning the number of maxima and minima occurring in any
given interval. In a letter to Gauss, sent from Berlin in 1853, he showed how it
was possible to admit more than a finite number.‘* ft was, in fact, an easy
Proposition, so fong as the case of infinitely many maxima/minima at
8 =O was excluded. For then:
t 4 eC .
aa imp fe BB ag =F 0), tim [ WH ap = 0.
iz J sin 8 2 bax J sin £
where O< b0. Riemann’s analysis advanced considerably beyond Cauchy’s in its
treatment of the necessary conditions for integrability. Riemann approached
this problem in a remarkable way. In any subinterval of {a,b}, allowing D, to
represent the maximum variation of f(x} between x,., and x,, where 6, =
(X_.4-%n), Riemann required that the sum:
(1.4) §,.D, + 6.0,+ ...+46,D, > 0 as 6 - 0.
lf 6 < d, Riemann then assumed that the sum {1.4} could achieve at most the
value A. A was thus a function of d:
8D, + SoD, +... +8,D_ = Ald).
Consequently, as d->0, A-> 0.
Benoting by s the sum of all intervals in which f(x) was of variation greater
than a, Riemann could argue that
6D, + §2.D, toa .+ 6,0, a Os.
It then followed that os = A and 5 = A
Whenever o was given, by appropriate choice of d, s-> Gas d-> 0. If the
function f(x) was always finite, Riemann formulated the necessary and suf-
ficient conditions for integrability as follows. Considering the total magnitude 5
of all intervals in which the variation of f(x) was greater than a given o, if
s7?O as 6-20, then the sum S converged as §6-» 0. Riemann was able to
generalize these conditions in order to admit an even larger class of functions to
integrability, It was possible to allow the functions in question to become
infinite, but only for isolated (einzelne) values of the variable. Such functions
were then integrable, if there was a definite limit value for Sas the limits of
integration approached infinitely near to such isolated infinities of the func-
tion .7!
The advances which conditions for integrability in this form aliowed were
made clear almost immediately. Riemann had assumed only the boundedness
of the functions in question. His focus had been almost exclusively lirnited to
the behavior of the sum function, and the conditions necessary to ensure its
convergence fo a unique limit. Subsequently Riemann turned to specific exam-
ples of functions which, under his newly given definition, were integrable.
What could be said for functions that were infinitely often discontinuous