Dangerous Knowledge Page #6

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how the whole family

looked to him,

to achieve greatness.

How he would come to nothing,

if he did not have the courage to

overcome criticism and adversity.

How he must trust in God to

guide him, and never give up.

And he never did.

Well i think, here you come to

the root of the problem for Cantor

of a theory,

that he was certain, was correct,

in part because he believed that

it had come to him

as a message from God.

There's a very important

religious aspect to Cantor's...

struggle to deal

with the infinite,

and face the problems of...

not being able to resolve many

of the open questions

that he himself raised

for the first time.

By 1894, Cantor has

been working solidly

on the Continuum Hypothesis

for over two years.

At the same time,

the personal and professional

attacks on him...

have become more

and more extreme.

In fact he writes to a friend

saying he's not sure

he can take them anymore.

And indeed, he can't.

By May of that year, he has

a massive nervous breakdown.

His daughter describes how his

whole personality is transformed.

He will rant and rave,

and then fall completely and

uncommunicatively silent.

Eventually, he's brought here...

to the 'Nervenklinik' in Halle,

which is...an asylum.

Today, we would say Cantor suffered

from manic depressive illness.

From Cantor's time,

we have left,

the case notes of

most of his psychiatrists.

In the notes for example,

we see that he, at times,

was quite disturbed,

was screaming...

and see that he was

really suffering from...

severe bouts of mania.

Sometimes he would be angry...

and he would have

ideas of grandeur

and sometimes he had

also ideas of persecution.

After his breakdown, everything

about Cantor is transformed.

He tells a friend he's not sure he'll

ever be able to do mathematics again.

He asks the university if he

can stop teaching maths

and teach philosophy instead.

But interestingly,

during this whole time...

despite having claimed, him not

being able to do mathematics again,

he never stops working on

the Continuum Hypothesis.

It's as if...

he just can't put it down,

can't look away.

You can only think:

i must find the proof!

This i can understand because

when you are a mathematician,

then you are for all the

time a mathematician.

It's a form of...living for you.

You must think

about mathematics, and...

you can't think anything else...

the whole day.

You are thinking and

thinking and thinking.

And you say:

i must find it!

I must, i must, i must!

You can't think anything else.

In August of 1884,

he writes a letter,

to his friend and colleague,

the last man who still

publishes his work.

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