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 grand hotel, paradox, grand and/or hotel:
“Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens.”
—William A. Drake (1900–1965)
“When a paradox is widely believed, it is no longer recognized as a paradox.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“We had heard of a Grand Fall on this stream, and thought that each fall we came to must be it, but after christening several in succession with this name, we gave up the search. There were more Grand or Petty Falls than I can remember.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When
Sir
Beelzebub called for his syllabub in the hotel in Hell
Where Proserpine first fell,”
—Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)