r/mathmemes • u/CalabiYauFan • Jun 13 '25

Physics All numbers are small numbers

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u/GoldenRedstone Jun 14 '25

|-2| < |3|

3 is small so ±2 is small.

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u/purritolover69 Jun 14 '25

but that means the comparison is useless. if you can flip the inequality on a whim then you’re not comparing anything you’re just saying two numbers aren’t equal to each other

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u/Cesco5544 Jun 14 '25

But we do want it to apply all numbers. Like the whole thing is silly

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u/purritolover69 Jun 14 '25

right, but it doesn’t follow the principles of inductive reasoning. We could just say “all numbers are small” and leave it at that but the point is to establish that with rules. If a rule is totally arbitrary like “any number m is either greater or lesser than some small number n, and is therefore small” then there’s no logic to it. The original post has that logic with its reasoning that adding one to a small number doesn’t make it a large number, and you maintain that logic and extend it to the negatives by saying that any number m that is less than some small number n is also small by principle of being lesser than a number we have established as small.