Zermelo and the Heidelberg Congress 1904 (Q2469955)
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English | Zermelo and the Heidelberg Congress 1904 |
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Zermelo and the Heidelberg Congress 1904 (English)
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11 February 2008
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At the ICM 1903 in Heidelberg, Julius König presented a lecture in which he claimed to disprove Zermelo's well ordering theorem and Cantor's continuum hypothesis. In 1950 \textit{G. Kowalewski} [``Bestand und Wandel'', München: Verlag R. Oldenbourg (1950; Zbl 0037.00203)] mentioned that the gap in König's proof, a result from Bernstein's dissertation, was discovered the next day by Zermelo. Since he did not give any sources for his claims, this story was disputed recently by various historians. The author presents a postcard from Zermelo to Max Dehn which shows that Kowalewski's claims are essentially correct.
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continuum hypothesis
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well-ordering theorem
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Zermelo
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