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In 1874, a bold, ambitious, anxious mathematician, Geyard Cantor, published a paper in which he had snuck in ideas that would upend the world of math, specifically that infinity can come in different sizes.

And today he's considered a kind of lone genius whose work provided the foundations of set theory

and in turn modern math. But it's clear that this work was partially derived from his correspondence

with another more reserved and more modest mathematician Richard Dedekind.

Cantor didn't give Dedekind any credit, and it's clear from his writing that

Dedekind wasn't pleased about it. But there wasn't any hard evidence of this act of intellectual

dishonesty. The case was circumstantial, speculative, so it had been largely dismissed by historians

of math.

I'm Samir Patel, editor-in-chief of Quanta Magazine.

I'm here with Quanta Math editor Jordana Sapelowitz to take us through the next twists

in this story.

So, Jordana, when we last left Cantor and Dedekind, Cantor had published his important 1874 paper,

and Dedekin stopped writing to him.

Some years later, they got back in touch,

and Cantor gets a new paper published in the big journal, Krell.

Once again, it has material in it from Dedekind without credit,

and Dedikin then finally cuts off

all contact. But more importantly, this new paper has drawn the ire of another mathematician

...