Hilbert's Paradox of The Grand Hotel

Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel is a veridical paradox (a valid argument with a seemingly absurd conclusion, as opposed to a falsidical paradox, which is a seemingly valid demonstration of an actual contradiction) about infinite sets presented by German mathematician David Hilbert (1862–1943) in the 1920s, meant to illustrate certain counterintuitive properties of infinite sets.

Read more about Hilbert's Paradox Of The Grand Hotel:  The Paradox, Analysis, The Grand Hotel Cigar Mystery, References in Fiction

Famous quotes containing the words paradox, grand and/or hotel:

    “The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
    —C.G. (Carl Gustav)

    “No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.”
    —F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    “The talk shows are stuffed full of sufferers who have regained their health—congressmen who suffered through a serious spell of boozing and skirt-chasing, White House aides who were stricken cruelly with overweening ambition, movie stars and baseball players who came down with acute cases of wanting to trash hotel rooms while under the influence of recreational drugs. Most of them have found God, or at least a publisher.”
    —Calvin Trillin (b. 1935)