Curt Jaimungal: What Is Infinity, Actually?

Curt Jaimungal: What Is Infinity, Actually?

From Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal by Theories of Everything

April 7, 2026 · 17 min

About this episode

Curt Jaimungal explores the concept of infinity and its implications in mathematics and philosophy.

For much of history, many mathematicians—following thinkers like Aristotle—viewed infinity as a never-ending process rather than a completed object. In the late 19th century, Georg Cantor revolutionized this view by treating infinite sets as mathematical objects that could be compared and studied. His work showed that not all infinities are equal, and that there are infinitely many different sizes of infinity. While his ideas are foundational in modern mathematics, some philosophical schools, such as finitism and ultrafinitism, continue to question whether infinite objects meaningfully exist. I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - Potential vs. Actual Infinity - 03:12 - Cardinality and Aleph-Null - 06:12…

People in this episode

Host: Curt Jaimungal

Topics covered

  • infinity
  • mathematics
  • philosophy
  • set theory
  • finitism
  • ultrafinitism

Keywords

  • infinity
  • Georg Cantor
  • finitism
  • ultrafinitism
  • set theory
  • cardinality
  • mathematical objects

Sponsors

The Economist

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