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A comment on What Even Is a Number?. Parent comment

Re:What Even Is a Number? by qubex on Tuesday February 19, 2019 @05:33PM (#19203564)
I’m a mathematician and you seem a bit confused. Natural numbers ({1, 2, 3, ... }) are for counting. Giving a bunch of objects as being prime examples of that which can be counted with natural numbers is as close as one can get (short of just scribbling down the numerals and kind-of circumventing the point). Other classes of numbers (particularly the Reals) are for measuring. Again, short of writing down examples of decimal expansions, a child could point to a (non-integer) mark on a measuring tape.

I get the feeling you’re not quite so well versed on this stuff as you think you are. Want a true example of ‘one’: the number of solutions to the intersection of two linear equations that are not parallel. Want an example of ‘two’: the number of solutions between a quadratic equation and a linear equation (given that certain existence criteria are met).

I think you need to revise your measure theory.

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Re:What Even Is a Number? by WilliamEdward on Tuesday February 19, 2019 @06:44PM (#19204176)
I think they're just trying to say "1" is not a tangible object in the physical universe, not that it does not exist as a concept. The natural numbers are just data, information, they don't exist beyond the first dimension except as descriptors to things in further dimensions, just like lines can be built up into higher dimensions but cannot be physically created for us to observe.

Maybe you're reading too much into this.

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Re:What Even Is a Number? by qubex on Tuesday February 19, 2019 @07:12PM (#19204369)
How is two straight lines crossing in one and only one place not an example of a single occurrence without reference to real world objects (which the OP dismissed as “not really being a number”).

As for reading “too much into this”, as Instated: Irma a mathematician, of course I’m going to take this seriously and make an effort to disprove naive misconceptions.

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