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A New Bridge Links the Strange Math of Infinity to Computer Science | Quanta Magazine

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All of modern mathematics is built on the foundation of set theory, the study of how to organize abstract collections of objects. But in general, research mathematicians don’t need to think about it when they’re solving their problems. They can take it for granted that sets behave the way they’d expect, and carry on with their work. Descriptive set theorists are an exception. This small community of mathematicians never stopped studying the fundamental nature of sets — particularly the strange infinite ones that other mathematicians ignore. Their field just got a lot less lonely. In 2023, a mathematician named Anton Bernshteyn (opens a new tab) published a deep and surprising connection (opens a new tab) between the remote mathematical frontier of descriptive set theory and modern computer science. He showed that all problems about certain kinds of infinite sets can be rewritten as problems about how networks of computers communicate. The bridge connecting the disciplines surprised r

A New Bridge Links the Strange Math of Infinity to Computer Science | Quanta Magazine Home A New Bridge Links the Strange Math of Infinity to Computer Science Read Later Share Copied! Comments Read Later Read Later set theory A New Bridge Links the Strange Math of Infinity to Computer Science By Joseph Howlett November 21, 2025 Descriptive set theorists study the niche mathematics of infinity. Now, they’ve shown that their problems can be rewritten in the concrete language of algorithms. Read Later Valentin Tkach for Quanta Magazine Introduction By Joseph Howlett Contributing Writer November 2

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