# Mathematicians Measure Infinities, and Find They're Equal!

I came across this article in scientific american article with the title "Mathematicians Measure Infinities, and Find They're Equal". I am quite quite baffled by this. Can someone give me some implications that this new finding might have and how it affect might affect the mathematical community ??

• You have to report more detail about which infinities are equal, not just the title. It's been known for a long time that there are different infinities. Whether two particular infinities are the same or different can be an open question - perhaps one such question was settled and this article is reporting that. – Ethan Bolker Sep 17 '17 at 14:27
• @EthanBolker quantamagazine.org/… Have a look at it yourself – Ayan Shah Sep 17 '17 at 14:29
• @AyanShah Users should not be expected to follow links to understand the question. Please post the related information here instead. – Simply Beautiful Art Sep 17 '17 at 15:00
• Thsi is not a duplicate question.. – Henno Brandsma Sep 17 '17 at 15:20
• I've cast the last reopen vote. While this question is very similar to the question "Is there a bijection between the reals and the naturals?, they are different questions: the latter asks about a specific interpretation of the result, while this one asks about the impact/content of that result. – Noah Schweber Sep 17 '17 at 15:35

Here's very rough summary of the context of that article:

It's been known for a long time that there are different infinities. Two particular infinities technically known to mathematicians in this research area as $\frak p$ and $\frak t$ were long thought to be (consistently) different, but no one could prove that.

It turns out that they are equal.

The article goes on to say

[Malliaris and Shelah]'s work has ramifications far beyond the specific question of how those two infinities are related. It opens an unexpected link between the sizes of infinite sets and a parallel effort to map the complexity of mathematical theories.