I really hate these mathematical technicalities spawned from material implication, chosen way of making a definition and vacuous truth - why can't we even consider some questions to be marked as non-sense/non-relevant like in relevance logic?
Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
41–50 of 398 posts
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it isn't. If you ask a child what comes after infinity, "Infinity + 1" is pretty much the default answer. Any kid who knows multiplication knows "Infinity + Infinity" is the same as "Infinity Times Two". The answer of "Infinity TIMES Infinity" is also popular for kids to say when they know a number bigger than their friend (who just proclaimed infinity is the largest number).
Six-year-olds know multiplication?
The mathematically curious probably do. I did.
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#43Infinity is equal to the product of all the primes. It is even because it has 2 as a factor.
It’s also equal to the product of all primes except 2 so it’s odd.
This just implies that infinity is both even and odd, which means that the statement "infinity is even" is still technically correct by this reasoning.
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it isn't. If you ask a child what comes after infinity, "Infinity + 1" is pretty much the default answer. Any kid who knows multiplication knows "Infinity + Infinity" is the same as "Infinity Times Two". The answer of "Infinity TIMES Infinity" is also popular for kids to say when they know a number bigger than their friend (who just proclaimed infinity is the largest number).
Six-year-olds know multiplication?
Some even post on HN!
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#45It's both until you can observe the last number. ;)
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#46I really hate these mathematical technicalities spawned from material implication, chosen way of making a definition and vacuous truth - why can't we even consider some questions to be marked as non-sense/non-relevant like in relevance logic?
[deleted]
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#47I don't get mad, I get odd.
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#48In JavaScript we're spoiled by having both. There's Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY and Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY.
Don't forget -0 (negative zero)!
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it isn't. If you ask a child what comes after infinity, "Infinity + 1" is pretty much the default answer. Any kid who knows multiplication knows "Infinity + Infinity" is the same as "Infinity Times Two". The answer of "Infinity TIMES Infinity" is also popular for kids to say when they know a number bigger than their friend (who just proclaimed infinity is the largest number).
Six-year-olds know multiplication?
[deleted]
Re: Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)
#50In my experience with children, one of the easiest-to-grasp concepts of infinity is provided by the transfinite ordinals, since it can be viewed as a continuation of the usual counting manner of children, but proceeding into the transfinite: 1,2,3,⋯,ω,ω+1,ω+2,⋯,ω+ω=ω⋅2,ω⋅2+1,⋯,ω⋅3,⋯,ω2,ω2+1,⋯,ω2+ω,⋯⋯ Presumably this person has no experience with 6 year olds? This explanation is horrendous haha
I explained basically this to my 4 year old nephew recently. He wanted to count to infinity. I asked him what is the biggest problem with counting to infinity? It's too slow. I said ok let's take bigger steps. We counted by 2's then 10's then hundreds and millions and then zillions and other ridiculous superlative numbers. It doesn't really matter because everything is still too slow. So then we said ok lets make up a number ω that is half way there, One ω, Two ω, done. He's happy. Then I told him to add one more and sent him back to play fetch with the dog.