Maeckes logo

<    1    >


Infinity is not a number

As infinity is not a number, you must take care of this in calculations.

 


Explanation

The calculation of

     

is wrong, the correct result is the number e = 2.7182…. Where does the error occur? We repeat the calculation, and look what happens

and so we write

     

Apparently ∞ + 1 is a little bit more than . That would be an explanation for it. However,

So it is not the proper way. Let us first use usual numbers. We're quite sure, that

is correct, and the result is accurate to 1 decimal place. If we take 1.000.000 the result will become more accurate. You can continue with bigger numbers, the number of decimals will increase and this never stops. Why did it go wrong with infinity? Well, it shows that infinity is not a number. The mistake happend at the very beginning. The calculation should be written like

as it concerns a limit. You should not use brackets in that way. But there was one more error, as

     

is incorrect. Infinity divided by infinity is undefined. Yes, here you clearly see that infinity is not a number, and that you must apply different calculation rules.

 


Deutsch   Español   Français   Nederlands   中文   Русский