infinity
is
not
a
number
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Replying to @InertialObservr
The concept of "number" is pretty flexible. Humans started with whole numbers, then included fractions, then irrational numbers, then zero, then negative numbers, then imaginary and complex numbers. The "extended reals" include +infinity and -infinity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_real_number_line …
9 replies 6 retweets 87 likes -
Replying to @johncarlosbaez
I'm a big fan of the extended reals. Perhaps i should have said "naive manipulations treated as a number are invalid", but that didn't have the same zing to it
5 replies 0 retweets 20 likes -
Replying to @InertialObservr
Teaching math: First we scold the students and tell them not to do all sorts of stuff. Then we take the good students into the back room and tell them how to do this stuff without getting in trouble.
2 replies 1 retweet 19 likes
Actually, the best students are those who, after we've taken them to the back room and told how to stay out of trouble, promptly ignore all our secret handshakes and mystic nostrums, and continue to swashbuckle with all the vigorous aplomb of the invincible beginner.
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