What I was trying to get people to realize is that number is really a slippery concept. What you start having to do is sort out a criteria to make the selection and generally that usually involves what operators can you do with the thing called a "number".

In the Real number system you can't really do any operations with infinity it is sort of "undefined answer". I think Bill G even expressed it in that sort of way. However irrational numbers are probably no different you could only round them to use them after that point and maybe that is a point of difference between them an infinity as it can't be rounded. It's sort of agreed that infinity isn't a number but it does come down to some very interesting definitions.

When you go onto the complex number system and higher even those differences disappear, as many answers are not valid and in some situations infinity can be used in all operations.

As per the presentation on the relationship between physics and maths linked earlier, the two fields don't always agree on how to treat definitions and the controversy around infinity is not entirely unexpected.

Last edited by Orac; 12/15/14 02:17 AM.
I believe in "Evil, Bad, Ungodly fantasy science and maths", so I am undoubtedly wrong to you.