Re: Cantor Confusion

In article <Cp+TF3S4VQtFFwlT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Andy Smith <Andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
*** T. Winter writes
....
This is wrong. With an infinite list you get a string of digits of an
infinite length. But each natural number has a finite number of digits,
and so the constructed string does not represent a natural number.

OK, thanks, maybe that gets to the heart of my misunderstanding.

If we write numbers in their simplest form e.g
0 = 0
1 = s0
2 = ss0
n = n s's 0

we can never have an infinite number of s's, is what you are saying?

Right. When you increase n you get simply one more s, and the number
of s's is still finite.
--
*** t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~***/
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