How Infinity Works (And How It Breaks Math)

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  • čas přidán 4. 07. 2023
  • In which we learn about the cardinalities of sets, how they can be used to make a system of infinities, and how it all uncovered the limitations of modern mathematics.
    Reuploaded due to a small technical error.
    Some sounds from freesound.org:
    freesound.org/people/newlockn...
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    #SOME3

Komentáře • 567

  • @francescomussin
    @francescomussin Před rokem +309

    This video is amazing, really, but I've got a few little things to note:
    - 9:37 I find this a bit misleading: formally the sqare root of a non negative real number x is defined to be the positive root of the polynomial p(t) = t^2 -x. Saying that sqrt(4) is equal to both -2 and 2 would not make sqrt a real function, as it gives off more than one real number.
    - 17:30 I've heard a buch of times this explanation of limits, but I'd argue it is a bit off: imagine the real piecewise function f defined to be f(x) = -x for x > 0, f(x) = -x+1 for x

    • @diribigal
      @diribigal Před rokem +6

      +1
      "functional analysis" or in just undergrad analysis

    • @Sai-hc6il
      @Sai-hc6il Před rokem +6

      I find it unnecessary and pedantic to talk about polynomial for sqrt its not even right if I'm nit picky p(t) is the associated polynomial function with P(X)=X^2-x, polynomials are not useful here. Sqrt(x) when x is positive is just the positive number t such that t^2=x period. And of course functional analysis is a totally different field than real analysis which is more appropriate for the subject here.

    • @ahasdasetodu6304
      @ahasdasetodu6304 Před rokem +18

      The square root thing also caught my attention and from my very brief research I managed to gather that while square root of 4 is ±2, the symbol √4 is not really used to indicate a square root but rather a principal square root. So basically what is said in the video is correct but what is showed isn't, at least if I understand correctly but I would love for someone to correct me if I'm wrong

    • @rsm3t
      @rsm3t Před 11 měsíci +13

      That is a misperception of the definition of a square root. Every nonzero complex number has exactly two square roots. If the argument is a positive real, then the positive square root is called the principal square root. The *radical symbol*, by convention, denotes the principal square root. But the phrase "square root" applies to both roots. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_root

    • @davidwright8432
      @davidwright8432 Před 11 měsíci

      I think I remember from far too long ago that this very point was dealt with by defining the sqrt of a positive real to be indeed positive - but that was the 'principal square root'; without prejudice as to whether any other number could also square to the original number. And of course, in the Reals, the negative of that positive root also squares to the original number. In the complex plane, life is far more interesting!

  • @fyu1945
    @fyu1945 Před rokem +157

    My favourite fact is about cardinal numbers is that you can prove there are so "many" of them, that the existance of the set containing all cardinal numbers leads to a contradiction simmilar to Russel's paradox, hence there is no set of all cardinal numbers

    • @stevenfallinge7149
      @stevenfallinge7149 Před 11 měsíci +9

      The alephs map the ordinals onto cardinals one to one, so that makes it less surprising, yet still perplexing given how "sparse" cardinals are within the ordinals.

    • @micknamens8659
      @micknamens8659 Před 11 měsíci +4

      The cardinality of a countable infinite set (e.g. all natural numbers) is not a natural number, but Beth_0, whereas the set of ordinal numbers of a countable set is the set of natural numbers. The set of cardinality numbers of all non-empty finite sets is the set of natural numbers. The set of cardinality numbers of all infi ite sets seems to be the set of Beth_n where n is a natural number. Now the question is why all possible cardinslity numbers wouldn't form a set.

    • @stevenfallinge7149
      @stevenfallinge7149 Před 11 měsíci +5

      @@micknamens8659 Because if you union a set of cardinals, you get a cardinal greater or equal to all of the cardinals in the set. So if the cardinals are a set, you can union them all to get a cardinal greater than or equal to all cardinals, a maximum cardinal. But there is no maximum cardinal, a contradiction. Presumably you knew that already, though.

    • @micknamens8659
      @micknamens8659 Před 11 měsíci

      @@stevenfallinge7149 What do you mean by "to union a set"?

    • @stevenfallinge7149
      @stevenfallinge7149 Před 11 měsíci

      @@micknamens8659 It's the union of the elements of a set. Formally, the union of a set A is the set S such that x∈S if and only if there exists Y such that x∈Y and Y∈A. For example, the union of the set {{1,2},{2,3,6},{7}} is the set {1,2,3,6,7}. Here, it's also understood that each cardinality is a set. This is possible with the axiom of choice, so that each cardinal can be defined as a least equinumerous ordinal, or with the axiom of regularity, so that each cardinal can be defined as a set of least rank.

  • @decb.7959
    @decb.7959 Před rokem +233

    I love the sound design in your videos, it reinfprces the visuals and makes everything feel more real.

  • @arbodox
    @arbodox Před rokem +12

    The presentation and visualizations in this video is absolutely phenomenal! This is probably the clearest explanation of the cardinal numbers I've come across yet.

  • @XT-N
    @XT-N Před rokem +43

    As a math student I already knew most of what was said in the video, but honestly I'm still very impressed by the editing and the amount of content you managed to fit into a 20min video.
    As other people have pointed out though, the square root function is not usually defined as a multivalued function, and it only outputs positive numbers.

    • @edinanives
      @edinanives Před 6 měsíci

    • @hedgehog3180
      @hedgehog3180 Před 2 měsíci

      I think that's cultural, here in Denmark it is always considered to be multivalued and if you don't give both answers on a test you would loose points for it.

  • @Ashinle
    @Ashinle Před rokem +26

    Love the direction and editing of your videos. A ton of effort that works perfectly with the information being taught.

  • @V0R73X
    @V0R73X Před rokem +121

    Dude, you are bound to have 100k by the end of this year. Your content its like no other. Keep up the awesome work 👍

    •  Před rokem

      i dont think he reads numbers

    •  Před rokem +1

      comments*

    •  Před rokem +2

      @@w花b fr

    • @agooddoctorfan651
      @agooddoctorfan651 Před rokem

      @@w花byes sir

    • @byronrobbins8834
      @byronrobbins8834 Před 8 měsíci

      ​@@agooddoctorfan651anyway, you had laid Jesus Christ in a manger, as the inn was full, but you will soon find out if the King (👑) is out of the manger, and into the water to be baptized, as then you will not be able to call it Christmas anymore, and so a New Year begins.

  • @driesclans8974
    @driesclans8974 Před 11 měsíci +1

    This channel is going to blow up the next couple of months! The video quality is so high, very under appreciated atm

  • @emanuelbatalla2419
    @emanuelbatalla2419 Před rokem +8

    Amazing content. I've watched a lot of math content and it's safe to say this is one of the best math videos I've ever seen

  • @calmcat5377
    @calmcat5377 Před 2 měsíci

    this is seriously the best video i've seen about the topic of infinity and its different "sizes". a lot of these sorts of things have a kind of "this is what is it is because i said so and you shouldn't worry about it" but this one really tells you why everything is the way it is instead of glossing over all the details. thanks for this.

  • @duukvanleeuwen2293
    @duukvanleeuwen2293 Před rokem +10

    This video is extremely well put together. Even though I was already familiar with most of the concepts in this video, I still really enjoying watching it, because it gives a very nice understanding of how each topic is related to one other. With those clean animations, this video encapsulates a variety of topics explained in the best way possible. Please make more videos like this.

    • @duukvanleeuwen2293
      @duukvanleeuwen2293 Před rokem +2

      Things I specifically liked about this video:
      - The provision of a proof at 6:42. It shows that you're not only concerned with providing facts, but also with the justifications for provided facts.
      - Those animations are fine af.
      - I never had a good understanding about cardinal numbers. This video explained the relation between all aleph- and bet-cardinals really well to me.
      - The moment you said: "We're gonna do a little history lesson", my mind went crazy, because I knew exactly what you were gonna talk about: ZFC and Gödels incompleteness theorem. The following minutes I was amazed by the precision by which you explained some basic logic concepts, after which you even talked for a moment about the axiom of choice!
      I was already familiar with most of the topics mentioned in this video, mostly because of Vsauce's video 'How To Count Past Infinity', which I saw several years ago, and partially because I studied mathematics for a year. However, in Vsauce's video, I think he didn't explain cardinal numbers very well because I didn't understand it at the time.
      All in all, you made a masterpiece of a video. Thank you.
      Vsauce's video: m.czcams.com/video/SrU9YDoXE88/video.html&pp=ygUPdnNhdWNlIGluZmluaXR5

  • @anthonyexplains
    @anthonyexplains Před rokem +4

    Woah this is some super high quality content, keep up the good work man. Can't wait for your channel to blow up!

  • @NikolajKuntner
    @NikolajKuntner Před rokem +28

    16:22 I feel like the common framing of "without assuming choice, math is harder" has the flavour of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your theory T will generally have models that are not models of the theory with more axioms, T+{A}. Since choice is familiar from us from the finite realm and people developed math largely in choicy frameworks (e.g. in the guise of Zorn's lemma in algebra), much of the math you encounter at uni is that sort of math which feels lacking without choice. Now for that bias, the models that break choice are less well-investigated for it. In the sea of possible mathematics, what's truely the size of that in which full choice function existence is natural. If you ask your average software engineer at google, he will likely not even know or be able to come up with any mathematical problem or theorem that cannot be modeled in first-order arithmetic extended with finite types (N a type, function types A->B and disjoint sum types A+B, for all types A+B, iteratively) and maybe dependent choice. Even if admittedly a Fourier transform (R->R)->(R->R) implemented in Haskell is not a true reflection of the concept in measure theory. Big cardinals beyond a dozen powers of |R| are on nobodies radar. This was just a short rant about why choice is maybe more historic than a necessity for "most math". But while you were browsing though the 1930's results, pointing to Rice's theorem and the ilk could be used to connect it to some more impactful, in a "practical sense", issues. Nice video.

    • @davidwright8432
      @davidwright8432 Před 11 měsíci +2

      Well, yes. But this video is aimed at someone not yet familiar with quite how slippery 'obvious' math notions can be. Explanation has to start somewhere. Initial explanations of this sort can be neither completely comprehensive nor completely correct - from a (in your case, far) more advanced standpoint. But they can be 'good enough' to get a clear initial idea across. With the understanding that refinements will follow if you continue studying. I didn't get to model theory til grad school. All Hail, Chiang & Keisler (Model Theory, now 3rd ed.)

    • @viliml2763
      @viliml2763 Před 9 měsíci +1

      I used to be against the axiom of choice, but that changed when I learned that the generalized continuum hypothesis implies it. It is simplest to operate in the system of ZF+GCH.

    • @NikolajKuntner
      @NikolajKuntner Před 9 měsíci +1

      @@viliml2763 Yeah I think it's fair if you commit yourself to a "restricted" model of set theory, e.g. L or if you just want CH to be true. Of course, adopting choice, even if true in those frameworks, still means you end up proving theorems that state non-realizable things. Of course, if you're not working constructively then this will happen already in arithmetic also.

    • @alexismiller2349
      @alexismiller2349 Před 9 měsíci

      ​@@viliml2763
      I find it interesting that you hold GCH as more normal than choice... I don't believe in believing in axioms, I think of them more as "how nice do you want sets to be", and GHC is one of the nicest ways to think of sets

  • @dlyth0
    @dlyth0 Před 2 měsíci

    I don't understand how this has so little views. Such an interesting video, and so much work put into this. Thank you!

  • @Dysiode
    @Dysiode Před rokem +4

    I'm super stoned and I was able to follow along the whole time. Props!
    Cardinality of infinite sets is super interesting, but it's so hard to visualize what sets represent higher cardinalities, similar to trying to visualize higher dimensions

  • @tanchienhao
    @tanchienhao Před rokem +8

    Wow this is an amazingly accessible video that covers nontrivial subjects like ZFC and CH too!

  • @borahsilver478
    @borahsilver478 Před 11 měsíci +1

    Man, what a great video. I like the way you don't go for the low hanging fruit of "dramatic statements" like "There are as many fractions as there are integers!" just to wow people but instead decode that that statement is based on an abstraction of the idea of "as many". Jeez, there's a lot of pop sci writers who just want the wow factor and leave the audience impressed but still confused. Subscribed.

  • @agooddoctorfan651
    @agooddoctorfan651 Před rokem

    Dude this video is so good!!! It helped me understand much more than I already knew! And the animation and teaching styles are phenomenal! Keep it up man!

  • @jaopredoramires
    @jaopredoramires Před rokem +2

    The visuals and even the sounds and details in this are wonderful. Great content keep it up I love it

  • @user-bm8uc1ei5p
    @user-bm8uc1ei5p Před 9 měsíci

    It's just amazing. I'm currently studying economics and we had almost no math taught. Such videos bring me both inspiration and sadness. Thank you for your work!

  • @DownDance
    @DownDance Před 9 měsíci +1

    I like this style of video/animation and the sound effects are so satisfying imo

  • @frolickings
    @frolickings Před 11 měsíci

    awesome content!!!! im actually sooo impressed by the editing and just everything in general

  • @Splarkszter
    @Splarkszter Před 8 měsíci

    Your animation skills are AMAZING, gosh i love it, dog is really cute and highly expressive, very enjoyable!

  • @bryanreed742
    @bryanreed742 Před 8 měsíci

    The balance of simplifying but not oversimplifying is difficult to strike, but I think you nailed it.
    Also, introducing so many concepts per minute without it getting overwhelming. Well done.

  • @zombie8956
    @zombie8956 Před rokem +1

    I wish this had more views, this is an incredibly made video about stuff I love talking about.
    Don’t let the view count right now get you down, ill always recommend your videos to others, and religiously watch them lol, I love this content.

  • @ilmorifajt4092
    @ilmorifajt4092 Před 9 měsíci +7

    Yoo, congrats on the honorable mention in SoME3. Totally deserved.

  • @lugui
    @lugui Před rokem

    the doggo animations keep getting better and smoother, very nice, the mouth sync in particular is very ngood

  • @jaybingham3711
    @jaybingham3711 Před 9 měsíci

    Wow...graphics are so top-notch! Not just artistically...but also instructionally, informatively. Kudos.
    So who could imagine the shapeshifter that is infinity might drive someone mad who dared try explore it?

  • @orisphera
    @orisphera Před 11 měsíci +1

    My notes:
    I think of set cardinalities and limits as different meanings of “infinity”. How correct this is may be debatable
    There are also ordinal numbers. These are ordinalities (if that's the term) of well-ordered sets. A well-ordered set is a set with a certain relation called order, and for two of them to have the same ordinality, they must have a one-to-one correspondence that preserves it. Normally, the order is defined as a relation that tells if one element comes after another one in some way. Two elements can't both come after each other, and a

  • @jonah1077
    @jonah1077 Před rokem +7

    The definition of the square root at 9:45 is a little iffy. The square root symbol is used to represent the principal square root function, which only produces one number. Therefore, if x^2 = y, then x can be two values, but rewriting this equation as x = sqrt(y) makes x only equal one value.

    • @methatis3013
      @methatis3013 Před 11 měsíci +1

      That is, if x is a positive real number. When it comes to complex numbers, we usually take all the roots

    • @rsm3t
      @rsm3t Před 11 měsíci +1

      Every complex number (hence every real) has two square roots (except 0, which has a single square root). By convention, the square root *symbol* refers to the positive root (in case the operand is a positive real).
      The symbol interpretation is not the same as the definition of "square root" -- the map is not the territory.

  • @twixerclawford
    @twixerclawford Před rokem +10

    This is such a good, high quality video. The fact it doesn't have a million views already is a crime

  • @someoneonyoutube8622
    @someoneonyoutube8622 Před 7 měsíci

    This is by far one of the best explanations on this topic I have heard. Specifically how you laid out the difference between cardinality and size, which I can also then apply across my familiarity with ordinals to differentiate cardinality, from size, from order.
    This itself has been very helpful in clearing things up for me. Of course I still desire a system which classifies infinity based on their actual size and have been working on trying to construct such a system which is no easy task. It requires a definition for infinity which is commutable when using operations in the same way a finite number would be, and this would mean examples like the hilbert hotel would not work the same either. I am hoping to call such infinities Terminal infinities as they will be exact in their description of size.
    I am also hoping to come up with a system of infinities which measures the rate of increase between infinite values but this project is even more ambitious it would seem. These if I can manage them I would call Celerital Infinities.

  • @realmless4193
    @realmless4193 Před 7 měsíci +1

    This is probably the best video I have seen on infinity.

  • @A._Person
    @A._Person Před 9 měsíci

    I love your insistence on having a little "bing" or "brrt" audio sting whenever something pops up on screen!

  • @CatherineKimport
    @CatherineKimport Před 11 měsíci

    THANK YOU for the breakdown of how the mathematically rigorous definition of cardinality isn't a perfect fit for plain english phrases like "how many," that is one of my biggest pet peeves about youtube math communication

  • @grevel1376
    @grevel1376 Před 11 měsíci

    Now I NEED a video about Frege's axioms and Russell's paradox. (subbed btw, cannot wait)

  • @hoteltoyota
    @hoteltoyota Před rokem +1

    Your videos are some of my favorites on the whole platform of CZcams. You explain things from the bottom up, where many people will gloss over most things with large abstractions. Your style makes the information much more digestible and entertaining

  • @magentatree1236
    @magentatree1236 Před rokem +1

    Criminally underrated, great vid

  • @christopherpierro5243
    @christopherpierro5243 Před 8 měsíci +1

    I took some programming classes and this gives me the same energy. Just very similar rules

  • @racheline_nya
    @racheline_nya Před 10 měsíci +1

    Awesome video, but there's one thing i'd like to clear up:
    3:27 This impression isn't quite false. Cardinality is an intuitive notion of size that works on infinities. It's just that some of the intuition you get from the finite cases isn't correct, unless you specifically make the assumption that the sets are finite. "Your intuition won't always work here" should be clarified, but the full picture is more like "Your intuition won't always work here because it's formed from a special case", instead of "Your intuition won't always work here because this stuff is confusing" (which in my experience can scare people away), so maybe that should be clarified too.
    This is just like with rational numbers. When we teach people about rational numbers, we keep using "x is smaller than y" and similar phrases to compare them, as if there's an intuitive notion of size for rational numbers, despite the fact that part of the intuition you get from integers breaks when you generalize (e.g. in the rationals, you can decrease a number forever without ever getting to 0 or below it, there is a number between each pair of numbers, every number is divisible by every nonzero number, etc.).
    I understand that the (many) notions of size of infinite sets are not immediately natural to most people, but it is heartbreaking to keep hearing that infinities are unintuitive, when weirdly, almost no one ever says it about the rational numbers. Neither of these things are unintuitive, they're just generalizations.
    Generalizations and abstractions shouldn't be seen as confusing, or covered with "beware: unintuitive math" signs. If anything, they're the opposite. It's about taking the essence of the original, and seeing what more can be done with it. It's about simplifying, removing the messy details of the specific case. Of course generalization does mean losing some properties, but in many cases, it's a small price to pay for beauty, if not a good thing by itself.

  • @tommythecat4961
    @tommythecat4961 Před 9 měsíci +2

    Because of our limitations we tend to think of infinity as something really, really big, but it's not, it's infinite, which is a whole different concept. For the same reason children aren't easily convinced that 0,999...=1, they think it's a lot of nines but it's not, it's infinite nines and that makes all the difference. In a way it's like thinking about the 4th dimension, we can represent it, make calculations about it, but never imagine it.

  • @felixmandelbart
    @felixmandelbart Před 11 měsíci +4

    10:09 You have to be careful making statements about reals using their digits, since some reals have two digit representations, like 1.0 = 0.9999... So mapping from reals to pairs of reals by deinterleaving the digits doesn't give a unique mapping: 00.595959... and 01.505050... both map to the pair (0.555..., 1.0)!

  • @RigoVids
    @RigoVids Před 9 měsíci

    Just examining the animations, you are an excellent example of quality over quantity. If you’re putting out lots of videos, then you’re the best CZcamsr ever

  • @jakobr_
    @jakobr_ Před rokem +3

    9:46 If this were true, we would not need the “plus or minus” in the quadratic formula. No, the (real number) square root of “a” is defined to be the positive solution to x^2 = a, not both solutions.
    For example, the golden ratio ≈ 1.618 is calculated from the expression (1+sqrt(5))/2. It is a single number, and while -0.618… has some things in common with the golden ratio, it is not the same number. That one is always written with a minus sign in front of the square root.
    It is more common for mathematicians to want to use a single solution than both, so when they do want to use both, they explicitly include the plus or minus symbol. If we assumed that the plus or minus is built in to the square root itself, we make it difficult to extract a singular number out of it. I mean, when was the last time you put absolute value brackets around a square root?

  • @theseal126
    @theseal126 Před 11 měsíci

    this video was awesome, finally I understood and got insight to infinity and how it is talked about in math. Thank you so much now I am even more exciting to study math :D

  • @bronzdragon
    @bronzdragon Před 3 měsíci

    Really good video, I loved it. This may be a bit stupid, but I really liked the dog at the start, too. He was cool. You're cool.

  • @xyz.ijk.
    @xyz.ijk. Před 9 měsíci

    I have to watch it a few more times, but that was really excellent and I appreciate it.

  • @wanes6883
    @wanes6883 Před 11 měsíci

    I love your way of explaining the concept!

  • @splience
    @splience Před 11 měsíci +2

    Wow, such an incredible video. Love the pacing, how arguments built up on each other and how nicely all of this is animated and sounddesigned.
    Even though I hate these kind of questions: What toolchain do you use to animate the 2D parts? Based on the complexity of your animation with skewing and stretching involved and text fading in letter by letter and rotating, I'd assume After Effects or similar software. Do you render the LaTeX formulae as PDF, import it into After Effects and go on over there? If so, how do you manage to consistently have the "appearance skewing and fading in" effect at 11:20? Do you copy speed curves over to all other clips by hand? Generally, how can you achieve such a consistent look and feel regarding the animations throughout the video?

  • @Happyface-bf8tf
    @Happyface-bf8tf Před rokem +42

    Is this submitted into the #SOME3 challenge? If not, it absolutely needs to be

    • @agooddoctorfan651
      @agooddoctorfan651 Před rokem +1

      What’s that?

    • @VegetaPixel
      @VegetaPixel Před rokem

      @@agooddoctorfan651 3Blue1Brown's Summer of Math Exposition 3. A competition of sorts that aims to encourage people to create educational math content.

    • @DanMan
      @DanMan Před rokem

      @@agooddoctorfan651 3B1B contest

    • @Rudol_Zeppili
      @Rudol_Zeppili Před 11 měsíci

      @@agooddoctorfan651 it stands for Summer Of Math Education, it was started by the CZcams channel 3b1b (3blue1brown) to get more awareness of small math content creators or people educated in math to make new educational content on CZcams.

    • @micahrubel1356
      @micahrubel1356 Před 11 měsíci

      ​@@agooddoctorfan651Summer Of Math Exposition
      A competition thing setup by 3Blue1Brown...and perhaps other channels. Tries to promote smaller channels to...make math exposition videos.

  • @QuantumHistorian
    @QuantumHistorian Před 9 měsíci +3

    The slight tangent on semantics and using old language in new situations at 2:57 is amazing. Briefly explaining that what words means changes on context is not only useful to keep in mind in many conversations, it's also a direct parallel between how languages grow and the process of generalisation in maths. And, in both cases, people often stumble and get so confused that they cannot proceed further. Yet a few short words explains clearly exactly whats happening. Kudos.

  • @yaksher
    @yaksher Před 11 měsíci +5

    It's worth noting that the definition of "infinity" in limits is not the same as the definition of the size of infinite sets, which is also not the same as infinite ordinals. Infinity as it is used in limits (both as an input and as an output) is more or less just a special placeholder symbol. It is often convenient to define it as greater than every other real number, and to define arithmetic operations on it based on how limits behave, in which case you're now working in the "extended real numbers", but it's distinct from the aleph infinities, and also from the omega infinities.

    • @jorgenharmse4752
      @jorgenharmse4752 Před 8 měsíci +1

      I know of 4 kinds of infinity in mathematics (and you covered most of them).
      I think of the symbol at the opening (resembling an 8 on its side) as topological infinity. The space is non-compact but you want stopping points in all directions, so you throw in some extra points. For the real line those are +infinity & -infinity. There is no preferred ordering on the complex plane, so we just throw in one compactification point (unsigned infinity) to make the Riemann sphere. (In most cases there are also more complicated compactifications that we could use.)
      Analytical infinity relates to the speed of approaching topological infinity. Thus e^x is 'more infinite' than x^9 as x tends to infinity.
      Then there are infinite ordinal numbers and infinite cardinal numbers, which are different from each other and from topological & analytical infinity.

    • @yaksher
      @yaksher Před 8 měsíci +1

      @@jorgenharmse4752 I'd never heard of analytical infinity (though the idea makes sense) before, neat.

    • @jorgenharmse4752
      @jorgenharmse4752 Před 8 měsíci +1

      Thank you. That term isn't officially used, but there are plenty of discussions in Calculus & Analysis courses of how fast something blows up (or approaches zero). I thought it belonged somewhere in the catalogue of infinities considered by mathematics.

    • @yaksher
      @yaksher Před 8 měsíci

      @@jorgenharmse4752 I think it's generally just referred to as asymptotic behavior

    • @jorgenharmse4752
      @jorgenharmse4752 Před 8 měsíci

      Correct, but if we're talking about various infinities in mathematics then I think this is worth a mention.

  • @noahnaugler7611
    @noahnaugler7611 Před 11 měsíci

    I appreciate your use of the interrobang

  • @niloytesla
    @niloytesla Před 11 měsíci

    one of my favorite channel, i have become a fan of u!

  • @JobvanderZwan
    @JobvanderZwan Před rokem +5

    Tangent: oh wow, I never even consciously noticed the switch from Greek letters to Hebrew ones in this branch of mathematics! Makes me wonder if there are other sections of math using other alphabets too. Maybe Cyrilic? Georgian? Hangul? (Hangul's system feels like it should b e a natural fit for *some* maths out there, no?)

    • @jorgenharmse4752
      @jorgenharmse4752 Před 8 měsíci +1

      We use several alphabets and still have contradictory conventions in which p might be momentum or a prime number or something else. I sometimes think that we should use Chinese characters.

  • @pra.
    @pra. Před 11 měsíci

    awesome video, love to see these

  • @agnelomascarenhas8990
    @agnelomascarenhas8990 Před 9 měsíci

    Excellent explanation of cardinality concept.

  • @Vfulncchl
    @Vfulncchl Před 11 měsíci +2

    God DAMN what an entry into #SoME3!!!

  • @DanMan
    @DanMan Před rokem

    THIS CHANNEL IS A GOLDMINE WTFFF UR VIDS ARE SO GOOOOD SUBED

  • @cube2fox
    @cube2fox Před 9 měsíci +1

    Note that the definition of infinite cardinal numbers uses a notion of infinity that has nothing to do with the notion of infinity involved in limits. The former is called actual infinity, the latter potential infinity. It was once commonly accepted that only the latter notion makes sense, but since Cantor most mathematicians believe both exist, despite actual infinity being associated with many mathematical paradoxes, unlike potential infinity.
    Mathematicians who reject the existence of actual infinity (of infinite cardinal numbers like aleph zero) are called finitists. They still accept the notion of infinity used in limits.

  • @kimpham54
    @kimpham54 Před 11 měsíci

    all of your videos are amazing.

  • @chennebicken372
    @chennebicken372 Před 11 měsíci

    This was a phenomenally concise video, clearing up the children's talk about the cardinalities. 👍 (Well, I am not qualified for anything, but anyways, just my opinion)

  • @jaxsyntax
    @jaxsyntax Před rokem +2

    He is the perfect mix of funny and educational XD

  • @General12th
    @General12th Před rokem

    This is a really good video, Josh.
    I especially enjoyed the sound effects.

  • @alonamaloh
    @alonamaloh Před 11 měsíci +1

    I'm going to criticize the video, hopefully in a way that is constructive, in case you or someone else wants to make a better one in the future.
    There are multiple notions of infinite that appear in math. The ones I can think of off the top of my head have one of three flavors:
    (i) infinities that appear when thinking about set theory: infinite cardinals, infinite ordinals (where omega +1 ≠ omega, surprise);
    (ii) points that are added to spaces, often to make them easier to understand: ±infinity in the extended real line, the points at infinity in projective geometry (e.g., the infinite slope of a vertical line), the point added in Alexandroff extension;
    (iii) infinities in number systems that contain them: hyperreal numbers, surreal numbers (where omega - omega = 0, big surprise!).
    The video only covers a small subset of these, and what is covered in the video is imprecise at several points, which is unfortunate. The ±infinity at the ends of improper integrals are not the same infinity as any of the infinite cardinals, but 18:24 seems to confuse them. The limit of a function is described as "the closer you get to that input, the closer the function gets to that limit", which is just terrible; "You can make the function get as close as you want to that limit by getting close enough to that input" is much much better. Also, the limit of the partial sums used to define infinite series and the limit of a function are not the same thing. Again, something like "you can make the partial sum get as close as you want to that limit by adding enough terms" would be fine.

  • @abubaocear7171
    @abubaocear7171 Před měsícem +1

    1:31 If regular numbers are the cardinalities of sets with corresponding numbers of objects, then infinity is the cardinality of a set with a never-ending quantity of objects.

    • @abubaocear7171
      @abubaocear7171 Před měsícem

      Sets are mathematical objects that contains other objects.

    • @abubaocear7171
      @abubaocear7171 Před měsícem

      1:55 notice that if two sets have the same finite cardinality, it’s possible to pair each element in the first set with its own personal and unique element in the second set.

    • @abubaocear7171
      @abubaocear7171 Před měsícem

      2:07

  • @curiousfish
    @curiousfish Před rokem +1

    This channel's gotta blow up soon!

  • @RSLT
    @RSLT Před 2 měsíci

    GREAT VIDEO! Liked and subscribed ❤❤❤❤❤

  • @thegoose2071
    @thegoose2071 Před rokem +1

    i love this style, algorithm bless this man

  • @GoneZombie
    @GoneZombie Před rokem

    Hey wait a minute, this is really good!

  • @amorphant
    @amorphant Před 8 měsíci

    One way to clearly visualize why the set of all possible subsets of n, equivalent to a series of yes/no questions, actually leads to a bigger infinite cardinal when applied to the natural numbers, is to represent real numbers in base 2. If you write out a real number in binary, then each digit after the decimal place can represent one of the infinite series of yes/no questions. Every real between 0=0.000... and 1=0.111... represents one subset of the naturals, with each binary digit of the real number indicating whether the corresponding natural number is in the subset. Since there's a 1:1 mapping of the subsets of naturals and the reals from 0.0 to 1.0, they have the same cardinality. We can extend this 0.0 to 1.0 range to the whole set of reals by interweaving the digits to the left of the decimal place with the digits to the right of the decimal place, similarly to how you'd interleave the odd and even numbers. In the end, we arrive at the set of all reals being the same cardinality as the set of all subsets of the naturals.

  • @zyad48
    @zyad48 Před rokem

    Aw man Gödel numbers and proofs.
    Veritasium has a video about how we technically cant prove everything, and of course Vsauce has talked about infinity a few times, it was fun seeing the info in those videos come back to me while watching this.
    Infninity is pretty mind boggling without context for sure lol, good video

  • @user-DongJ
    @user-DongJ Před 11 měsíci

    Your vlog looks good. Perhaps you can talk about p-adic numbers or perplex numbers in your next vlog.

  • @dixztube
    @dixztube Před 4 měsíci

    This was wonderful

  • @maxim7718
    @maxim7718 Před 9 měsíci +2

    Love that video,
    Here's something I thought while watching the video, it's inspired by cantor's diagonal argument :
    Let's start with 0 and assign Naturals to Reals :
    1. 0.0000...
    2. 0.1000...
    3. 0.2000...
    ...
    10. 0.9000...
    11. 0.0100...
    12. 0.1100...
    ...
    19. 0.8100...
    20. 0.9100...
    21. 0.0200...
    and so on we can construct all real numbers between 0 and 1, (0.99999... = 1) using all the Naturals, so Bet0 is the cardinal of the Reals between 0 and 1
    but it means that we can also construct all the reals between 1 and 2 using another bet0 and so on, so we're using bet0 times bet0 to construct all reals therefore bet0 * bet0 should be bet1
    I realise that's what Josh meant by measuring the cardinality of all subsets, being 2^bet0 but why bet0^2 is not bet1 ?

    • @JoshsHandle
      @JoshsHandle  Před 9 měsíci +3

      The problem is that you have not actually assigned all the reals to naturals - you are missing all the irrational numbers. For example, which natural gives you pi? Because of this, beth_0^2 is actually still just beth_0.

    • @maxim7718
      @maxim7718 Před 9 měsíci +1

      @@JoshsHandle Thanks for you reply. ​
      I thought that when we are at 4 times bet0 we're in the 3 to 4 range,
      so all the naturals are assigned to all the reals between 3 and 4,
      therefore the "infinite" natural being the fraction part of Pi + 1 (because I assign 1 to 3.000....) should represent pi, but that means that there is some sort of "infinitly" long natural number

    • @JoshsHandle
      @JoshsHandle  Před 9 měsíci +1

      @@maxim7718 And that is, unfortunately, the problem. There is no natural number that has infinitely many digits. This is why the set of all reals is "bigger" than the set of all naturals, because the way reals are defined, they are allowed to have infinite (potentially non-repeating) digits, while the definition of the natural numbers only allows for finite digits. If you want to see what natural numbers might look like if they had infinite digits, I recommend looking into a concept called p-adic numbers. Since those have infinite digits, there are again "more" of them than there are natural numbers.

    • @maxim7718
      @maxim7718 Před 9 měsíci +1

      ​@@JoshsHandleThank you very much, I understand it better now
      I will definitely look into p-adics

  • @otter502
    @otter502 Před 9 měsíci +1

    Man this is a good video because its causing that friction that comes with new ideas but its also good enough at exolaining that it overcomes it
    Like once divorced from size technically the integers have the same cardinality as the rationals even though the integers are a subclass (subset?) Of the rationals

  • @kilianklaiber6367
    @kilianklaiber6367 Před rokem

    You cover lots and lots of topics. I doubt that anyone can understand this without prior knowledge of these topics. It is important to note that the notion of a limit for n approaching infinity does not correspond to the cardinality of a set. But then, this concept of a limit is in and of itself very complex and it took mathematicians approximately 200 years to find a reasonably definition (essentially Weierstrass and Cauchy in the 19th century)

  • @jensphiliphohmann1876
    @jensphiliphohmann1876 Před rokem +2

    When it comes to infinite cardinal "numbers", I'd rather consider them categories than actual numbers. The category below ℵ₀ being "Finite": Finite + Finite = Finite,
    Finite × Finite = Finite.
    I'm not sure whether "Zero" should be a category of its own, below "Finite".
    Fun fact: There are infinities which _are_ numbers but very different from the infinitues this video went through: The nonstandard numbers.

    • @micknamens8659
      @micknamens8659 Před 11 měsíci

      There are different flavours of finite numbers (in order of increasing operational freedom): Natural, Integer, Rational, Real, Complex numbers, n×n Matrices of finite numbers. And there are embeddings of more restricted numbers into more free numbers (like Rationals into Reals, and (scalar) Reals into 1×1 matrix of Reals).
      The cardinality of the set of Integers and the cardinality of the set of reals is different.

  • @nicholas_obert
    @nicholas_obert Před rokem

    Great content! A new 3b1b is rising to bless us

  • @gelearthur
    @gelearthur Před rokem +3

    Wake up josh has uploaded

  • @fauconvictor1041
    @fauconvictor1041 Před 7 měsíci

    axiom of choice is needed for the existence of a basis in any vectorial space, which is not "niche, advanced, purely hypothtecal statement"

  • @jeffbguarino
    @jeffbguarino Před 5 měsíci

    The problem of all these different contortions and trying to figure out sets of numbers is that there is no such thing as infinity . When you realize that, then all these problems go away. Numbers originate from counting objects, real objects. Even in your imagination you are counting objects. You have stored pictures of what one is , two, three, up to about 12 and after that it gets kind of blurry. In order to prove a number exists , you really have to count up to that number and count one at a time. No short hand, as in multiplying or exponentiation can be allowed. The problem is induction. With all finite numbers you assume you can always add "one" to a number and get the next higher up number. You assume the next higher up number exists. If you think about it, there are only 10^80 particles in the universe. So you could not count higher than this. Before you reach 10^80 , you will run into other problems. If you are using a computer to keep track of your count, you will have to keep adding hard drives or memory to this computer to count higher. When you reach a certain point , the computer will be so massive , it will collapse into a black hole. There exists a number such that if you try to add "one" to it , you will find out that it will be impossible. That number is the largest number. It will be nonsense to speak of bigger numbers.
    This means infinity is just nonsense and so is zero. You can't have zero of anything. The empty set ( ) is supposed to have nothing between the brackets. But in the real world you can't do this. There are things tunneling in and out of the brackets. Things can appear between the brackets for short times and disappear. Empty space is teaming with activity.
    There are not infinitely many numbers between zero and 1 or between 1 and 2 etc. They are quantized. There are probably numbers that are just impossible. This is the real world. July like an electron in an atom. It can jump from one state to the next higher state without passing the intermediate energies. It does a quantum leap. So to figure out what one plus one really is, you have to add up all the possible ways , combinations and permutations there are to count things from one to two. Then divide. You will probably find out that it doesn't equal the classical two. It will probably be slightly less than two due to tunneling. The way Richard Feynman added up the electron paths was to take every possible path in the universe an electron could travel and then divide to get a distribution. This is how numbers should also be treated. Numbers represent collections of objects. Most mathematicians are stuck in the classical world. Newtons world does not exist.

  • @pozay2235
    @pozay2235 Před rokem

    Great video ! I'd be a bit more careful about terminology though ; integers != natural numbers (for example)

  • @awindwaker4130
    @awindwaker4130 Před 11 měsíci +1

    I don't think it's all that bad to think of infinity as a number. I mean, it's a point on the Riemann sphere, a point in projective geometry, and you can consider the extended reals where you do include with a few rules on how to use it (often the case in the definition of a measure).

  • @GrifGrey
    @GrifGrey Před rokem +1

    dude you've GOT to submit this to the summer of math exposition 3 by 3blue1brown
    unless you already have and just have no tags with it

  • @MisterrLi
    @MisterrLi Před rokem +1

    Hi, how infinity works, in 20 minutes, not an easy task. Cantorian infinity theory is interesting, but not the only working model. I guess that this could be continued in a " part 2", where more precise models of infinity are displayed. You can of course say that all infinities are the same size, being bigger than all finite numbers. You can also say that all even numbers is a smaller amount compared to all whole numbers, because the former is just a part of the whole numbers, where if all even numbers are subtracted from both sets the odd numbers are left in the whole number container and nothing is left in the even number container, so that would show that whole numbers should be the one having more elements. Going through the maths for these different views of infinite sets and comparing them logically is a whole different task, so I guess most producers of math videos don't bother, but it wouldn't be wrong to name Galileo's paradox for completeness sake.

  • @loganhodgsn
    @loganhodgsn Před 9 měsíci

    I love this video! I found the animated mouth slightly behind the audio somewhat distracting... our brains are better at syncing mouths the other way around

  • @tanvirfarhan5585
    @tanvirfarhan5585 Před rokem

    dammnn good animation bro keep it up

  • @WangleLine
    @WangleLine Před rokem

    Your videos are so incredible. Holy shit.

  • @traumerle369
    @traumerle369 Před 7 měsíci

    Alle Zahlen und Zeichen sind künstlichen Ursprungs und somit sind diese eine Fiction. Ändern sich die Zeichen ändert sich die Fiction. Das Längenmaß 1,00 m ist eine erfundene Größe welche wir benutzen um bestimmte Zustände zu berechnen. Dies verhält sich mit der Gewichtseinheit 1,00 kg in gleichem Maße welche es so nicht gibt da hier die Gravitation und der mit dieser in Verbindung stehende Luftdruck eine Rolle spielen, während der Strahlungsdruck oder Lichtdruck der Photonen ebenfalls einen Einfluss ausüben.

  • @jeffbrownstain
    @jeffbrownstain Před 11 měsíci

    (TCMS) Theory
    The term Transcendental Compact Multidimensional Set Theory refers to the study of sets that have the following properties:
    They are transcendental, meaning that they do not contain any algebraic numbers.
    They are compact, meaning that they are closed and bounded.
    They are multidimensional, meaning that they have more than two dimensions.
    This type of set theory is a newly invented field of study, but it has the potential to be very important for understanding the structure of complex data. It has the potential to shed light on some of the most fundamental questions in mathematics. For example, it could help us to understand the nature of infinity and the relationship between sets of different sizes.
    The study of transcendental numbers is already a complex and fascinating topic, and the addition of compactness and multidimensionality would only add to the challenge and the potential rewards.
    TCMS Theory has the potential to help us understand infinity in a way that we never have before. However, it is also possible that it could lead us down a rabbit hole of madness. Only time will tell what the true potential this field of study has.
    Known Sets:
    The Set of Limiting Meaning~

  • @nicolasguerin4678
    @nicolasguerin4678 Před 8 měsíci

    It's just so frustrating that it's impossible to prove or disprove the continuum hypothesis... Like, is it true or not?
    But at the same time, it's so interesting that the 2 incompleteness theorems are true. It makes math a rich tapestry of universes with different axioms and ensuing theorems

  • @Monkeymario.
    @Monkeymario. Před 15 dny +1

    0:04 as a conputer scientist i disagree you see in computer science infinity is a number

  • @luisaalmeida6138
    @luisaalmeida6138 Před rokem

    Wait I didn’t even realize you’re not like super famous. I thought the channel was huge

  • @andrewpepper4071
    @andrewpepper4071 Před 3 měsíci

    I've a maths question about infinity; how many perfect squares are there? It feels like there's one perfect square for each cardinal number because squaring a cardinal number gives one perfect square. However, for any cardinal number n, there are √n perfect squares less than or equal to n. So, that suggests there are √∞ perfect squares - and thus ∞-√∞ irrational square roots.

  • @QuantumHistorian
    @QuantumHistorian Před 9 měsíci +1

    I'm not sure it's super accurate (or rather, not super clear) at 15:46 to say _"How true the continuum hypothesis depends on you feel that day."_ Rather, that claiming that mathematical statements are absolutely true as if they were some ideal platonic form in the ether, or talking about them as if they were entirely subjective, I think it's clearer to think of true/false as only make sense *within a system of axioms*.
    Eg: it's true that angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees in Euclidean geometry, but not in curved geometries. Thinking about truthfulness strictly in terms of consequences of axioms (and attached logical system) that has been picked by us is the way to frame things. Some choices of axioms are rather pointless (eg, equating truth and false); while some very closely match the maths derived from more intuitive concepts (eg, ZFC).
    Putting things this way makes it obvious that it is meaningless to ask whether the continuum hypothesis (or the axiom of choice) is true or false, because that simply isn't a property that axioms can have. Claiming otherwise is equivalent to saying I am "true" for choosing pancakes over waffles for breakfast.

  • @infinityyworks
    @infinityyworks Před rokem

    great video

  • @suomeaboo
    @suomeaboo Před 11 měsíci +1

    What kind of infinity is used in algebra and calculus (like limits to infinity)? Is it ב0, or ב1, or something else?

  • @rtg_onefourtwoeightfiveseven
    @rtg_onefourtwoeightfiveseven Před 11 měsíci

    7:01 Theta changing its angle, k being springy, T being thermal, and mu experiencing friction. Great touch.
    9:35 There are two square roots of 4, but "the (principal) square root of x" just has one value for any nonnegative x, or else it wouldn't be a function. Is the implication that subtraction of transfinite numbers isn't a function?

  • @nervous711
    @nervous711 Před 6 měsíci

    6:46 I have a question:
    Since we assume the cardinality of the list of all real numbers is infinity, the process of the making this "new number" is never-ending, and so is the comparison of this "new number" with all real numbers in the list. Therefore we can never be sure the "new number" we are creating is truly unique. So why jump to the conclusion that the number is unique?

    • @JoshsHandle
      @JoshsHandle  Před 6 měsíci +1

      We can prove that the number is unique without having to manually check every case. This is analogous to how I could prove that every prime number above 2 is odd, without having to literally check that every such number satisfies that condition. In other words, we can use the tools of math to show that the conclusion is the only possible one to make, so we don't have to bother checking the entire number to make that conclusion.