Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace (PDF)

Description

A gripping guide to the modern taming of the infinite. ―New York TimesPart history, part philosophy, part love letter to the study of mathematics, Everything and More is an illuminating tour of infinity. With his infectious curiosity and trademark verbal pyrotechnics, David Foster Wallace takes us from Aristotle to Newton, Leibniz, Karl Weierstrass, and finally Georg Cantor and his set theory. Through it all, Wallace proves to be an ideal guide―funny, wry, and unfailingly enthusiastic. Featuring an introduction by Neal Stephenson, this edition is a perfect introduction to the beauty of mathematics and the undeniable strangeness of the infinite.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Everything and More is, in nearly every way, a gift. It’s a thoughtful and witty 300-page testimonial to the qualities I never fully understood that mathematics possessed: Math is astonishing and full of ‘shadowlands,’ and―ultimately―stunning beauty.” ― Anthony Doerr, Boston Globe”[Wallace] brings to his task a refreshingly conversational style as well as a surprisingly authoritative command of mathematics…A success.” ― John Allen Paulos, American Scholar”Wallace is the perfect parachute buddy for a free fall into the mathematical and metaphysical abyss that is infinity.” ― Dennis Lim, Village Voice”All the grace of pure mathematics without the parts that make me want to bang my head against the wall.” ― Daniel Handler, Newsday”Shockingly readable…a brilliant antidote both to boring math textbooks and to pop-culture math books that emphasize the discoverer over the discovery.” ― Booklist (starred review) About the Author David Foster Wallace (1962―2008) is the author of Infinite Jest, Girl with Curious Hair, Everything and More, The Broom of the System, and other fiction and nonfiction. Among his honors, he received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers’ Award.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This book is not for everyone. I have a math degree from MIT and although I was definitely not the greatest math student in the world I felt like I was probably above average in terms of what DFW expected his audience’s math education to include. I had no idea how he was going to write a non-textbook style book on this topic.He almost succeeds in writing a popular book on this branch of math but it doesn’t actually succeed in that I think most people will leave this book, if they even get through it at all, still confused about much of this topic and not really understanding a lot of his proofs or the full significance of many of the ideas. That being said, he still does a really good job. I think his goal is basically unachievable because math requires you to read like 1 line of information, then think for a while, and probably write some stuff down to make sure it makes sense, and then read another line. This is a tall order for people reading a popular book and I think these ideas can only be absorbed at a normal reading pace, which is what people expect of a popular book, if you can think of really clever examples that make each unit of information obvious so that the reader doesn’t need to stop to think, so that the reader just understands and absorbs the information as they’re understanding the words. That’s not what happens here. What’s impressive is that DFW describes the whole history of ideas, includes the proofs, and fits the parts of the story together so that they lead to the bigger ideas.I’d recommend this book to people who enjoy DFW’s writing style, know high school level math, are wiling to put thought into the ideas that he goes through or are willing to just accept his assertions of various ideas being true. I do not recommend this book to people who want something easy to read and don’t have the time or the patience to invest in being pretty active about understanding some complicated ideas. I think the ideal audience for this book is people who would describe themselves as loving both DFW and math, or someone who already knows all of these ideas really well and just wants an amusing little recap.

⭐I think the first thing to be said of this book (or booklet, as Wallace recurrently refers to it) is that it’s rather a lark to read. This will surprise no reader familiar with Wallace’s literary and critical works. But, unlike his previous works, this one deals with extremely (towards the end) technical mathematics which the author is obliged to gloss over.-Quite a contrast to, say, Infinite Jest. I was, by turns, frustrated with this lack of rigour, and appreciative of it. I can’t put it better than Wallace does in a footnote on pp.220-221, “Rhetoricwise, let’s concede one more time that if we were after technical rigor rather than general appreciation, all these sort of connections would be fully traced out/discussed, though of course then this whole booklet would be much longer and harder and the readerly-background-and-patience bar set a great deal higher. So, it’s all a continuous series of tradeoffs.” – Informed readers take note of his use of the term “continuous series” here!Thus, Wallace does the best that I think any writer could in walking the tightrope between over-the-top technical mare’s nests which only a few members of the faculty at Mathematics departments (and a few autodidacts) could grasp, and what he derides as the “Pop” accounts of such things as the development of Set Theory.-So, nobody, including Wallace, and myself, is going to be completely satisfied. While not a complete technical purist, I do wish he’d chosen to be more technical in some parts and less so in others. As a former student who has always wished his “formal” training in Mathematics went further that first year college Calculus (though I later worked my way through more advanced textbooks on my own), I was genuinely interested in the technical illuminations this book might provide. On the other hand, as an appreciator of fine writing, I know the two do not go hand in glove.So, in the end, I should say that this book is as good a “tradeoff” as you’re going to find. I was pleased to see that Wallace’s wit and style haven’t suffered from the subject matter. He rather resembles, in this respect, another writer who is more often quoted herein than any other for, as Wallace terms it alliteratively, his “pellucid prose”: to wit, Bertrand Russell, a mathematician of first order, whose renegade life and pixie wit served him well throughout his (as Wallace puts it, wryly, in the penultimate footnote of the “booklet”) long, distinguished life. Let’s hope Wallace’s life and output are equally as long and energetic.

⭐I was so looking forward to settling down with this book. The positives are fairly straightforward. DFW is a fantastic writer, and wears his immense intellect very lightly. The negatives however, make the book a sad failure. There are a number of basic errors (badly edited ?) and at times Wallace wanders off the reservation in ways that undermine the overall narrative.I have heard it suggested that this was a “spoof” book, in which case perhaps it succeeds. However, I bought the book on the basis that it was a serious attempt to tackle a serious subject, and apart from some lovely little gems (almost all in the first quarter of the book), was left somewhat dismayed.If there was a 2 and a half star, I would probably have gone there instead of the 2, but there we have it.

⭐Don’t buy from SM BOOK POINTI got this book at a cost of Rs.625. It looked as if the book has survived some road stall bookshop with dust and yellow pages. Simply it’s worth less than Rs. 300 compared to its quality.Not satisfied. Again telling..Don’t buy from SM BOOK POINT

⭐The style (and the superfluous use of acronyms) is somewhat irritating and gives the impression that the author just wants to show off with his academic use of latin abbreviations et similia, just to impress poor educated readers. With his apodictic judgements of other authors it is clear that he wants to put himself on a different and superior level: it’s a sort of captatio benevolentiae I learned to distrust from school time, because often put in practice by “shallow” authors/professors. Said this, what about the mathematical errors the book[let] is riddled with? It’s a shame. I’ve lost time and money on nothing.

⭐Nivell força elevat. Per a matemàtics o gent amb molta afició per les mates. També és interessant des del punt de vista de la història de les matemàtiques.

⭐

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