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GEORG CANTOR His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite Joseph Warren Dauben GEORG CANTOR His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite Joseph Warren Dauben PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Published 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 Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources 0 9 8 Printed in the United States of America FOR MY PARENTS, FOR ELAINE, AND FOR DAVID Acknowledgments 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 York VLE 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 my IX, 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] 385 Cantor with his wife, Vally, about 1880. In the possession of Egbert Schneider. in re mathematica ars proponendi quaestionem pluris facienda est quam solvendi -—-Georg Canter Introduction 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 ideas 4 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 has Introduction 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 nevertheless Preludes 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 oni 8 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

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