March 2, 2009
Why they use the hebrew letter “Aleph” for cardinal numbers in Mathematics? what is the origin?
orignition asked:
I will elaborate:
I will elaborate:
I know that Georg Cantor invented it. I meant in my question to inquire why he chose the Hebrew letter Aleph, as I know that most mathematical marks are in Greek.
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Comments on Why they use the hebrew letter “Aleph” for cardinal numbers in Mathematics? what is the origin?
I looked this information up for you on the Wikipedia…
Georg Cantor is the one who “introduced fundamental constructions in set theory” He chose the Hebrew letter Aleph for cardinals and the Greek letter Omega for the ordinals…
The website is You’ll want to scroll down to Mathematical Work. Your answer is in the 3rd paragraph…
George Cantor invented it… but why the hebrew letter aleph i have no idea… stranger yet he used the greek letter omega for ordinals. why not greek for both or hebrew for both? ./shrug
using a hebrew letter is pretty abnormal too imho.
also, cantor may have been jewish, but i don’t see why this would have to do with him giving cardinals a hebrew letter…