Are you all set to celebrate the birthday of Georg Cantor (1845-1918), the creator of set theory (in mathematics and philosophy)? A complete set of chess pieces, for example, is the "union" of the set of 16 white pieces and the set of 16 black pieces. When we identify the pawns and the rooks, etc., we are playing with the ideas of set "inclusion" and "intersections." Another simple example of a set is the collection of 2,795 posts in my tie blog (since 2008). Beyond expressing the fundamental axioms of counting and arithmetic, set theory has given us the best ways to explore the logic and mathematics of infinity. Among the set of people born on 3 March, Georg Cantor is the unique member who "introduced the mathematically meaningful concept of transfinite numbers, indefinitely large but distinct from one another" (from britannica.com). The two members of the Kleppinger household selected this tie out of the set of ties-Gene-has-not-worn-recently because its multiple circle motifs illustrate the ideas of "union" and "inclusion."
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