Poincaré once said that:
"Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover."
Today we know that he was clearly wrong. What was on his mind when he said that?
2026-03-25 14:25:36.1774448736
What was the motivation behing Poincaré saying that Topology was a disease?
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The purported Poincaré's quotation is about set theory [Mengenlehere].
We can see :
According to Gray, the source is James Pierpont's quotation from a footnote into Otto Hölder's Die mathematische Methode, 1924, page 556.
Gray translate it as :
Regarding Poincaré point of view against Cantorism, see :
Henri Poincaré, Science and method (original ed, 1908) :
Ch.I : II. The Future of Mathematics
Ch.II : III. Mathematics and Logic.