I cannot understand how there are “larger infinities than others” no matter how hard I try.

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I have watched many videos on YouTube about it from people like vsauce, veratasium and others and even my math tutor a few years ago but still don’t understand.

Infinity is just infinity it doesn’t end so how can there be larger than that.

It’s like saying there are 4s greater than 4 which I don’t know what that means. If they both equal and are four how is one four larger.

In: Mathematics

34 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Some great answers here, one thing I’d add is that infinity isn’t a number, it’s more of a concept. While we can get away with treating it like a number sometimes, we’ll eventually get to something nonsensical. For example consider

Infinity +1 = Infinity

Which seems pretty sensible right? If we subtract infinity as if it were a number we get

1 = 0

Which is obviously a load of rubbish. So thinking about infinity like a number that fits within our usual rules is the wrong thing to do

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