What separates infinity from the largest number less than infinity?
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If I take some liberty with your question and interpret “largest number less than infinity” as the largest finite number that has ever been used for any calculation, written down, named, or theorized. The big key is finite. Meaning if you had a pen and paper, you could start writing the number, and your task would eventually finish. (Perhaps it might take longer than a human lifetime, paper than exists in the world, and more ink than there is water in our oceans, but if you know how many numbers per second you can write, you can predict how long it would take). If you started a stopwatch, and every second that ticked by, you added 1 to that number. Even if you waited 14 billion years, you would still have a finite number. Even if every second you doubled the number instead of adding one. Even if you squared it, raised it to its own power, or ran it through some rapidly embiggening function… You would still have a finite number.
Infinity is not *really* a number as much as it is a concept or description of something that is unending, but let’s say there was a decimal representation of infinity. It might look like a 1 followed by an infinite number of zeros (an unending number of zeros by definition). So go back to our loosely defined largest finite number… If you could manage to write that many zeros per second, how long do you think it would take you to finish writing infinite zeros? When could you end your task if your task is literally endless? That’s the difference between finite and infinite.
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