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[1] [3] For example, if a line is viewed as the set of all of its points, their infinite number (i.e., the cardinality of the line) is larger than the number of integers. [4] In this usage, infinity is a mathematical concept, and infinite mathematical objects can be studied, manipulated, and used just like any other mathematical object.
The infinity symbol (∞) is a mathematical symbol representing the concept of infinity. This symbol is also called a lemniscate , [ 1 ] after the lemniscate curves of a similar shape studied in algebraic geometry , [ 2 ] or "lazy eight", in the terminology of livestock branding .
The set of natural numbers (whose existence is postulated by the axiom of infinity) is infinite. [1] It is the only set that is directly required by the axioms to be infinite. The existence of any other infinite set can be proved in Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZFC), but only by showing that it follows from the existence of the natural numbers.
The aleph numbers differ from the infinity commonly found in algebra and calculus, in that the alephs measure the sizes of sets, while infinity is commonly defined either as an extreme limit of the real number line (applied to a function or sequence that "diverges to infinity" or "increases without bound"), or as an extreme point of the ...
In the philosophy of mathematics, the abstraction of actual infinity, also called completed infinity, [1] involves infinite entities as given, actual and completed objects. The concept of actual infinity has been introduced in mathematics near the end of the 19th century by Georg Cantor , with his theory of infinite sets , later formalized into ...
However, the general definitions remain valid in the more abstract setting of order theory where arbitrary partially ordered sets are considered. The concepts of infimum and supremum are close to minimum and maximum, but are more useful in analysis because they better characterize special sets which may have no minimum or maximum.
The best known example of an uncountable set is the set of all real numbers; Cantor's diagonal argument shows that this set is uncountable. The diagonalization proof technique can also be used to show that several other sets are uncountable, such as the set of all infinite sequences of natural numbers (see: (sequence A102288 in the OEIS)), and the set of all subsets of the set ...
In mathematics, an infinitesimal number is a non-zero quantity that is closer to 0 than any non-zero real number is. The word infinitesimal comes from a 17th-century Modern Latin coinage infinitesimus, which originally referred to the "infinity-eth" item in a sequence.