– Infinity?
In: Mathematics
Infinity is a property that sets can have, of being infinite. It is not a number, it is not an object, though sometimes it’s referred to that way for the sake of brevity or intuitions.
A set is finite if you can count the number of objects in it and eventually stop. A set is infinite if you can keep counting forever and ever and never stop. A path is finite in length if you can travel along it and eventually reach the end. A path is infinite if you can travel along it without repeating and keep going forever and ever.
And so on. Note that this property does not uniquely specify one particular thing. You can have two sets that are both infinite but are different from one another, just like you can have to apples that are both red but are different from one another.
In some contexts, it’s possible to create an object that behaves as if it’s bigger than every other number, and people will sometimes call it “infinity”, but it’s not actually a real number, it’s an object in whatever context they created it.
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