In the late nineteenth century, an extraordinary mathematician languished in an asylum. His life's work on "the continuum problem" would bring us closer than any mathematician before him in helping us understand the nature of infinity. This is the story of Georg Cantor.

Cantor's work, though brilliant, seemed to move in half-steps. The closer he came to the answers he sought, the further away they seemed. Eventually it drove him mad, as it had mathematicians before him.

A respected mathematician himself, Amir D. Aczel follows Cantor's life and traces the roots of his deeply philosophical theories. From the Pythagoreans, the Greek cult of mathematics, to the mystical Jewish numerology found in the Kabbalah, The Mystery of the Aleph follows the search for an answer that may never truly be reached.