Abstract:
This article gives a short history of the concept of near and far during the last one hundred years. It was first formulated by Frederick Riesz at the International Mathematical Congress in Rome (1908). It has been extended and studied by several mathematicians in teaching and research. Applications to general relativity and digital images have been found. A comprehensive bibliography is given.
Keywords:topology, proximity, nearness, calculus teaching, extension of continuous functions, Taimanov theorem, Wallman compactification, hyperspaces, Vietoris topology, proximal topology, Hausdorff metric, general relativity, digital images.
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