You will catch a glimpse of beauty that stops you in your tracks, but moments later you are not sure if you saw anything at all. Then, quite unexpectedly, the magnificent animal stalks out into full view for a few, fleeting seconds ... We human beings have trouble with infinity. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - and yet it is a concept now routinely used by schoolchildren. In this highly entertaining and stimulating history, Brian Clegg takes us on a tour of that borderland between the extremely large and the ultimate, from Archimedes counting the grains of sand that would fill the universe, to the latest theories on the physical reality of the infinite. Full of unexpected delights, the history of infinity proves to be a surprisingly human subject. Wether it's St Augustine contemplating the nature of creation, Newton and Leibnitz battling over ownership of calculus, of Cantor struggling to publicize his vision of the transfinite, infinity's fascination remains the way it brings together the everyday and the extraordinary, prosaic daily life and the esoteric. Exploring the infinite is nothing less than a journey into paradox.
