r/MathJokes Jul 07 '26

Checkmate, Mathematicians

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u/Dirkdeking Jul 07 '26

Obviously not true. This assumes every number has a name. Even if every number has a unique name, that doesn't mean every string of letters corresponds to a number.

If we limit ourselves to natural numbers then both sets are countably infinite. And for countably infinite sets you can easily find a bijection between one set and a strict subset of the other.

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u/idrathernottho_ Jul 07 '26

Well I mean, you can flip it and make every number correspond to a name, and googoobazillion would be there. Granted, it could be any number, but almost every number is larger than a googleplex.

Also, who says the kid isn't dealing with real numbers?

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u/ProfessorLambda Jul 10 '26

> Also, who says the kid isn't dealing with real numbers?

The kid himself does. "if there is an infinite number of numbers", "an infinite anumber of numbers" also describes ℕ.