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M$1 May 20, 2009 12:42 PM

What number comes just before infinity?

Silly question mathematically but mathematicians and philosophers tend to cross over somewhere near the infinity point and I wondered if there might be something real there.
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May 22, 2009 10:17 AM
By definition, infinity can't be reached by counting. So there is no number right before infinity.

There is a bigger and smaller infinity, though -- or actually, you should call them countable and uncountable.

A countable infinity (the smaller one) is how many whole numbers there are (0,1,2,3,4,5....).

An uncountable infinity is how many real numbers there are. Another way to visualize it is that there are an uncountable infinity of infinitesimal points on a line.

This difference was discovered by the mathematician Cantor; I think it's really cool math.
Asker's Rating:
• Very nice. Not as technical as some but clearly expressed.


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May 20, 2009 12:44 PM
Infinity minus 1 equals infinity.

∞ - 1 = ∞

As infinity is not a finite number, so every operation that uses infinity ends up equaling infinity... In reality there is no number prior to infinity, as infinity is a pure concept and not a precise finite number.
Source(s):
http://www59.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=infintiy+-+1
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/64623.html


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May 20, 2009 01:20 PM
Everyone is drawn to this concept of infinity. A great question and good responses.

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May 21, 2009 02:41 AM - Fact Refuted
Not all operations on infinity equals infinity.

There exists more than one infinity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfinite

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May 20, 2009 12:57 PM
∞ - 1 This is the logical number that comes before infinity.
Source(s):
my own deductive logic


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May 20, 2009 01:00 PM
infinity - 1

Infinity is not really a number, just a concept, so the number just before infinity is just an concept as well.

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May 20, 2009 02:24 PM
Start counting, and when you get to infinity it was the number just before that ;). But the biggest number that we have a name for is a googolplex, so you can't count any higher. The reason is because as others said, infinity is not really a number, however, mathematicians are no stranger to using infinity. It can be used in calculations. For example, 1/infinity = 0

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May 20, 2009 02:40 PM
infinity -1 OR

999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
untill you don't know what to call the next one.. that is the number before infinity

=)

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May 20, 2009 04:25 PM
Eeek! blight broke Mahalo.

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May 20, 2009 07:48 PM
maybe it isn't broken, maybe it goes on forever, we just can't see it...

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May 20, 2009 02:50 PM
I was always taught that infinity -1 = infinity. It's a concept, not a number. Since there is no number for infinity, since numbers increase forever and never end, there isn't a number that comes before infinity.

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May 20, 2009 03:19 PM
There does not exist a number which is one less than infinity.

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May 20, 2009 05:05 PM
There is no number before infinity. Infinity is just a concept.

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May 20, 2009 05:33 PM
infinity - 1

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May 21, 2009 10:53 AM
Philosophically speaking, infinity is the point at which you reach when there is no further to go. The spiritualist would call it heaven, the guru would call it Nirvana, and the agnostic would call it bulls--t!

http://www.math.yorku.ca/infinity/Images/newInfinity.jpg

Some would say infinity is a state of mind, a place where one can feel free from the shackles of the world. In that sense, then, the number (or level or whatever) just before that state would be = the state you start in. Once you reach a spiritual plane, for example, then all else outside of it is in the material realm. That way, there exist only two states (or numbers) - infinity, and the one just before it!

Here’s a section from an essay on Infinity by Hector Parr:

“The world of the Pure Mathematician is far removed from the real world. In the real world there is no difficulty finding the length of the diagonal of a square and expressing this as a decimal, but in the perfect world of Pure Mathematics this cannot be done. In the real world we know the process of counting the natural numbers can never be completed, so that the number of numbers is without meaning, while the mathematician finds it necessary to say that if the process were completed, the number would be found to be Aleph-0. These are harmless follies; what the mathematician gets up to inside his ivory tower need not concern those outside.
But the mathematician's ideal world did impinge on reality at the beginning of the twentieth century when Russell (1872-1970) attempted to reduce all mathematical reasoning to simple logic. Even the natural numbers themselves could be defined in terms of a simpler concept, but to make this possible Russell found it necessary to assume that the number of real objects in the universe is itself infinite. Here again I find it astonishing that he made this assumption so glibly. He called the principle his "Axiom of Infinity". Now an "axiom" is something which is self-evident, unlike a "postulate", which is assumed for convenience even though it is not self-evident. Why did Russell not refer to the principle as his "Postulate of Infinity"? To me it is far from self-evident that there are an infinite number of things in the universe; in fact I cannot see that the statement has any meaning. Infinity is an indispensible concept in Pure Mathematics, but is it not meaningless when applied to the number of real things?”

Source(s):
http://meaningofmath.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_archive.html


Tags: maths, philosophy, infinity, numbers

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May 22, 2009 01:04 AM
There is no number below infinity. Even if you go into what's called the surreal numbers, there is still none because there is still no smallest infinitesimal, so you can't subtract the "smallest thing" from infinity. For example, you might define infinity minus one. But then you can define infinity minus one half.

So there are systems where there is the thing just before infinity. You can add to the real numbers and then stop whenever you feel like it.

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