Cantor’s Set Theory
The development of the Set Theory started with a little improvement of a theorem which was based on the Fourier series. ‘Über eine Eigenschaft des Inbegriffes aller reellen algebraischen Zahlen’ was the first paper published by Cantor which dealt with algebraic numbers and the proof that all these can be corresponded with a set of positive integers and both have the same power. His next paper came out in six parts during 1879 and 1884.
In 1884 Cantor suffered from a nervous breakdown. Due to illness, his application for teaching at Berlin as Professor was turned down. Nevertheless Cantor continued with his work and tried to remain mathematically active. He founded the German Mathematical Society in 1889 and also worked towards establishing the first International Congress of Mathematicians which he achieved in 1897. Though his ideas were not supported much in his homeland, cantor managed to gain interest from the mathematical world internationally. When his notion of the Set Theory was recognized worldwide, new areas such as Topology and the measure theory were explored. These recent developments signified Cantor’s works to be of great importance.