1. While studying at Balliol College at Oxford, Smith became absent-minded at the dinner table, which was common for him. Since meat in his native country, Scotland, was scarce at the time, a servant urged him to eat because he “had never seen such a piece of beef in Scotland.” 2. Smith was known for his acute attention to grammar,…...

What is infinity? In life and mathematics alike, it is an abstract concept referring to something that is endless and limitless. Philosophers and mathematicians of yore, from ancient Greeks like Plato and Aristotle, to Renaissance thinkers such as Isaac Newton and Galileo, had tackled this subject, only to be baffled by its seemingly unresolvable contradictions and paradoxes. It wasn’t until…...