Nice. I thought I might have been able to get omega^2 with 'in saeculo saeculorum', but unfortunately that merely means 'ages of ages' rather than 'eternity of eternities'.
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 11:23 AM From: "Gareth McCaughan" <gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [math-fun] Transfinite ordinals in Shakespeare
On 23/08/2017 09:06, Adam P. Goucher wrote:
There's an explicit reference to $\omega + 1$ in Shakespeare's the Taming of the Shrew, 1596 (emphasis mine):
BIONDELLO I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her, 'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for, I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell *for ever and a day*.
Did this hold the record for the largest ordinal discovered until Cantor?
I think "le'alam ul'alme 'almaya" in the Kaddish has to mean at least omega+omega. The Kaddish long predates Shakespeare, but I don't know how old any particular words in today's text are and my knowledge of Hebrew and of Jewish history are both too weak to make me a good person to try to find out.
-- g
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