Comment on near zero

• KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  as far as we can tell, mathematically, they are a given, and they never stop.

  I’ll wait for you to find the end of pi.

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  • cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’m not saying the numbers stop. But there are numbers where concepts like “closer to zero” or “number before [another number]” don’t apply.

    For example There is no sensible way to define a less-than for the complex numbers and thus they can’t be ordered.

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    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      i would argue that you can probably independently define an ordering mechanism. And then apply it.

      You can just pretend that 100 is 0. I see no reason this shouldn’t apply to everything else.

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      • cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        What do you mean by independent? There is no more general and independent notion of ordering than a less-than operator. The article above oulines a mathematical proof that no such definition exists in a consistent way for the complex numbers.

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