Definition of infinity

The word "infinity" has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy. The Greek word "àphorme" (αφορμή) was first used to describe a mathematical concept of an unbounded or indeterminate magnitude. This term is often translated into English as "limit" or "bound." Hellenistic mathematicians such as Euclid and Archimedes expanded on this idea, representing it as the concept we now know as infinity. In the Middle Ages, several thinkers, including the Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas, used the Latin term "infinitas" to describe the divine attributes of God, as they believed that God was infinite in his knowledge, power, goodness, and mercy. Hypothesizing on the nature of infinity also became a topic of debate among philosophers at the time, with many arguing that it was impossible for anything to be truly infinite. During the Renaissance, renewed interest in ancient Greek thought and mathematical breakthroughs such as Leonhard Euler's work on the idea of "imaginary numbers" brought new attention to the concept of infinity in mathematics and philosophy. It was then that the German mathematician and philosopher G.W. Leibniz placed the term "infinitas" within the framework of calculus and set theory, giving it its modern mathematical definition of an unbounded or limitless quantity. Overall, the origin of the word "infinity" reflects the ongoing history of human attempts to understand the universe's vastness and the limitations of the human mind's ability to understand it.