506
submitted 3 months ago by LostXOR@fedia.io to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] teft@lemmy.world 57 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yes, TREE(3) is larger than a googolplex or even graham’s number.

[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 12 points 3 months ago

That article is not comprehensible to most people

[-] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago

I am one of them. I still can't get past the Hotel paradox. To me an infinite number of guests cancels out an infinite number of rooms.

Infinite guests = infinite rooms Infinity + n = infinity To say the bus of unbound guests could just move into infinite rooms seems to give a property of rooms without limit that is not shared with the original infinite guests.

The original premize states the hotel is full. Because the only thing that matches infinite rooms are infinite guests.

Apparently I am very stupid. My sister was right all along.

[-] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 5 points 3 months ago

So, some infinities are bigger than others.

How many numbers are there? An infinite number.

How many even numbers are there? An infinite amount, but half the size of the first infinity.

This is how there are empty rooms in the infinitely large hotel with infinite guests.

[-] LwL@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Funnily enough that's an example of two infinities that mathematically have the same cardinality (which is very often conflated with size since for general mathematical purposes that's what it is) since you can map a bijection (i.e. every number in the first set has one and only one mapping in the second and vice versa) between the two (and it's as simple as f(n)=2n).

And intuitively that makes about as much (or rather, little) sense as the infinite hotel.

An example of infinities with different cardinalities would be rational numbers vs natural numbers.

[-] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 3 months ago

OK, thanks for the extra info. When I see that function it kinda makes sense but stops if I think about it too much.

Would even numbers and prime numbers have different cardinality?

[-] LwL@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I didn't actually know this (all my math knowledge comes from what my cs degree forced me to ingest) but google says yes (since natural numbers, being a countably infinite set, are apparently an example of the smallest possible cardinality of infinite sets, so any infinite subset of natural numbers is always the same cardinality.)

The answets to this stackexchange question go into detail but that's beyond what I understand without a lot of effort tbh.

[-] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 3 months ago

OK, that makes some degree of sense in the abstract. I'll try to hold on to it.

Thanks for checking and getting back to me. It helps grok the cardinality a bit more.

[-] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Half of infinity is still infinity, but smaller?

Can you hand me that spatula? I need to scrape my brains off the walls.

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments (25 replies)
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
506 points (96.9% liked)

Science Memes

16080 readers
2793 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS