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On 7/19/2013 11:54 AM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
>
> I don't know.
>
> Maybe I should start with something simpler.
>
> Infinity + Infinity = ?
>
> Is there any other answer than 2(Infinity)?
>
> If so please explain.
>
> -Unlike Warp I don't know the answer and really want to know :)
>
If you've even hung around people majoring in math in undergrad, you may
have heard stories of a set theory class in which a they actually spend
a day's class proving that 1+1 = 2. On the face of it this seems like a
huge waste of time, why would you bother to construct a proof of such an
obvious fact? Well, it's in answering questions such as yours in which
such effort pays off.
There are a few rather subtle points to a simple question like "what is
1+1":
1) What is a number?
2) What is addition?
And in addition, for your question:
3) What do we mean by infinity?
For the most part your answers to these questions don't matter for
ordinary finite numbers, but as soon as you start treating infinity like
a number these subtle points start to matter a great deal.
In terms of your question "Infinity + Infinity = ??" you most commonly
see one of two answers:
a) Infinity * 2 (note: not 2 * Infinity, the order often matters)
b) Infinity
And this entirely glosses over issues that for some answers to questions
1-3 you can get more than one infinite number, at which point it matters
which infinities you were adding!
Sorry I don't have a simpler answer. But basically the only real way to
answer it is "tell me what you really mean by Infinity, and only then
can I tell you what Infinity+Infinity is". The answers given by clipka
and Le_Forgeron/Orchid are but two of many possibilities (although they
both get the same result, they are using different interpretations of
"infinity" to do it).
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