Infinite possibility or finite possibility?

lilykatt: Zero is a number. It’s part of the natural numbers, the rationals, etc.

You can’t raise infinity to a power, because infinity is not a number - the comparison is meaningless.

I think they’re opposite. Zero represents a lack of anything and infinity represents everything and then some. Zero is the wrong word used sometimes. How about I have ‘no’ money.

no… just look at a number line… zero is deffinatley a reachable number. its impossible to mathematically reach infinity, but theres “infinite” ways to mathematically reach zero.

I dont get your money analogy… of course you can have zero money, its also known as being bankrupt lol.

They’re inversely related, rather than the same thing.

You might be interested in a field known as transfinite math. Rigorous proofs have been done that show actual infinities are possible.

weell zero and infinity are unreal numbersso we are decribing something we dont really know is there(imaginary only nessessary to peak curiosity of somthing we dont understand.kind of like describing figuratively.u are blue in the face,the face isnt really blue but you still understand the concept of the point trying to be displayed) everything between however are real numbers that have a value that can be mathematically explained.the reason for your confusion is you are comparing apples to oranges not apples to apples.and they do teach that in school now.I learned it in high school but you wouldnt believe there teaching that to middle school and elementary kids now times are changin and kids are getting too smart for there own good.that was a really good question though.keep em coming

I believe, yes, they are. and from my knowledge I think teaching kids something that time consuming would confuse far too many.

same as them saying cristopher columbus discovered america, when we all learn YEARS later he did not.

it’s all really a matter of how you think about it.

A few points:

• You can ‘calculate’ zero. 2-2=0, for example. You can’t divide two positive integers and get zero, though - perhaps that’s what you’re alluding to? Zero is an odd number, though. Check out http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/07/zero.php for an excellent summary.
• Infinity is not a number (zero is). You’re right that you can’t ‘calculate’ infinity insofar as that you can’t sum a finite number of finite values and get infinity. Again, though, infinity isn’t a number - you can’t do math with it (infinity / 2 is not a valid equation. nor is infinity - 1).
• What you touch on with the idea of “zero dollars”, etcetera, is what used to be a fairly fundamental rift in mathematics. Back in the 18th century (my timing may be off), there was a great deal of disagreement over whether or not math had any validity beyond how it reflects the physical world. In a purely physical sense, you’re right that the idea of “0 quarters” does not make a great deal of sense. But then, neither does “negative 4 apples”, but we generally accept the ‘fiction’ of negative numbers due to their convenience. This argument was mostly resolved with the advent of computers, which suddenly provided a concrete use for formal logic and a bunch of other areas that previously seemed like “second class math”, and mathematicians now generally agree that math has meaning above and beyond how we map it to the real world.
• It is still meaningful to assign units to a zero value, however. “0 dollars” is different from “0 apples”, because “0 dollars + 5 dollars” is a valid sum (preserving units), and “0 apples + 5 dollars” isn’t.
• Even though infinity isn’t a number, there is more than one magnitude of infinity. These are known as “transfinite numbers”. For example, the natural numbers (1, 2, 3, …) are infinite but countable, while the real numbers (0.1234, 5.38272, etc) aren’t. Even though both are infinite, there’s provably more real numbers than natural numbers! Even stranger, the rational numbers are countable, so there’s exactly as many rational numbers as natural numbers.