Dear uncle bataleur, or anyone else who knows the answer...

[babysaxon]

If infinity is bigger than any numbers, what happens when we try to count up to it?

(Ed. : I'm not kidding, she really did ask this over dinner just now!!)

Comments

[bateleur]

It's a very good question

[cuthbertcross]

Useful stuff (she was very happy to hear you thought it was a good question!)

[undyingking]

Seems a bit slack just to ask what happens -- why not encourage her to try it, and see for herself? She'll never learn anything just by being told the answers :-)

[cuthbertcross]

Good point, one for a rainy afternoon....

[ar_boblad]

We don't get to it. We keep on finding new bigger and bigger numbers. Give me any number and I can give you a bigger one (by adding one onto the number you gave me) but mine will still *always* be smaller than infinity.

Because you can't count up to infinity and you can count up to anything else (if you were really, really patient) infinity must be a special kind of thing that's a bit like a number but not really the same. Sometimes people ask things like "what's infinity times two?" but because you can only really times with numbers they may as well be asking "what's pancake times tree?"

[cuthbertcross]

Ooh, pancake trees!!!