3 ms·
If we're going for useful lies to tide kids over, I quite like the explanation in the Postgres docs: > infinity (date, timestamp) later than all other time sta
by peteretep 8y ago
If we're going for useful lies to tide kids over, I quite like the explanation in the Postgres docs:
> infinity (date, timestamp) later than all other time stamps
I think you could tell a kid who wasn't quite ready for Aleph numbers that:
> infinity is a useful made-up number that's bigger than all other numbers
Which is useful when kids first hear about it, I guess.
I think my first "practical" introduction to infinity came with "Space is infinitely big", and both mjd's explanation and my own fails at that point.
- dahart 8y ago> infinity is a useful made-up number that's bigger than all other numbers I love the emphasis on this being a choice, and I wish this kind of thinking was taught more in math. So many math explanations act like these things are immutable facts of the universe, rather than human constructions. We lose some of the history and character of math when we teach it as law rather than invention. Zero is also a useful made-up number, and it didn’t always exist as a concept. We understand 0 so deeply now, it’s not longer possible to imagine a world without that idea. Another fun one, 0^0 gets defined (chosen) to be 1 sometimes, because it makes other formulas work out, not because it’s the correct or only answer.
- KennyCason 8y agoI wish I could upvote this more. I encounter this very often in discourse. I extend this to logic and philosophy as well. Without maintaining both the rigor and the creativity of reasoning, only a hollow shell remains.
- navane 8y agoHow I've come to view math is: all math is made up, parts of math seem to correspond with nature (physics), and can be used to build things (engineering).