If there are an infinite number of whole numbers, and an infinite number of decimals in between any two whole numbers, and an infinite number of decimals in between any two decimals, does that mean that there are infinite infinities? And an infinite number of those infinities? And an infinite number of those infinities? And…(infinitely times. And that infinitely times. And that infinitely times. And…) …
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3There are "infinite infinities", but not for the reason you give. If you pick any two real numbers, then the "infinity" of numbers between them is the same "infinity" as the number of all the real numbers; we'd write this as $|[a, b]| = |\mathbb{R}|$, and formally say that the cardinality of the set of numbers between $a$ and $b$ is equal to the cardinality of the real numbers. [This cardinality is strictly "bigger" than the cardinality of the whole numbers. The standard argument to prove that there are "infinity infinities" is to use powersets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_set. ] – user1729 Apr 15 '24 at 14:17
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2Yup. It's infinities all the way up. – JonathanZ Apr 15 '24 at 15:58
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Infinities – marty cohen Apr 15 '24 at 17:49
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I don't understand what the close-votes for needing lacking focus are suggesting - surely this question does focus only on one problem?! – user1729 Apr 22 '24 at 09:27
1 Answers
(Making my comment into an answer.) There are "infinite infinities", but not for the reason you give.
Discussing "infinities" requires certain definitions, but it really boils down to: two sets $X, Y$ have the same cardinality (i.e. correspond to the same "infinity") if there exists a bijection between them. In this case, we write $|X|=|Y|$.
If $X=[a, b]$ is the set of numbers between $a$ and $b$, and similarly $Y=[c, d]$ is the set of numbers between $c$ and $d$, then the map $f:X\to Y$ defined by $f(x) = (x-a)\frac{d-c}{b-a}+c$ is a bijection. Hence, all the sets you defined have the same cardinality.
These sets have infact the same cardinality as the real numbers. To see this, note that they all have cardinality equal to that of $[-\pi/2, \pi/2]$. Then prove that the closed interval $[-\pi/2, \pi/2]$ has the same cardinality as the open interval $(-\pi/2, \pi/2)$, which is tricky. Then the map $g:(-\pi/2, \pi/2)\to\mathbb{R}$ defined by $g(x) = \tan^{-1}(x)$ is a bijection. Combining these three bijections $$[a, b]\to [-\pi/2, \pi/2]\to (-\pi/2, \pi/2)\to\mathbb{R}$$ gives a bijection $[a, b]\to\mathbb{R}$, and the result follows.
There are "infinite infinities", and the standard proof of this uses powersets. In particular, the powerset $\mathcal{P}(X)$ of $X$ has strictly larger cardinality than $X$, i.e. there exists an injection but no bijection $X\to\mathcal{P}(X)$. Taking powersets of powersets, etc., gives the result.
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1From a 7 June 2007 sci.math post of mine: This is something I used to wonder about a lot when I was young (which was well before the internet; now, anyone just google for the information), namely whether there is actually an uncountable number of different infinities. All the books I knew about when I was in middle school (1971-73; books by authors such as Isaac Asimov, George Gamow, and Irving Adler, which I could find at the public library where I lived) either said there was (continued) – Dave L. Renfro Apr 19 '24 at 07:57
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2more than one type of infinity or they said there was an unlimited number of infinities. I was puzzled as to why, after talking about how some infinite sets are uncountable, the author didn't mention whether the infinitely many kinds of infinity was an uncountable infinitely many or just a countable infinitely many (or tell us that no one knew the answer, if that was the case). Even today, it seems to me that this is a natural question, but I almost never see an elementary discussion of cardinal numbers in which this question (are there uncountably many different infinities) is brought up. – Dave L. Renfro Apr 19 '24 at 07:57
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