# Questions about "Infinity" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 29, 2002, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397 "2002-10-29T14:29:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/21 "2002-10-30T12:33:40Z")
You could also invent new letters. ---
**Author:** ![Cek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Cek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cek)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/22 "2002-10-30T12:34:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Wrong. > I’ll invent a naming pattern for you right here: > > I’ll call 1 “la”. > I’ll call 2 “lala”. > 3 is “lalala”. I’d paid to see someone try an use a sytem like that in real life! 🙂 “That will be lalala dollars and lalalalalalalalalalala cents.” Remember these are humans who are naming these for common use. So it needs to be something they can A. say within their life time B. Do the same with writing So limiting the size of the word means all possible sound in every combination will be used and soon repeated. Any repeated number could have something to show it was a repetitions like people do with names like John IV or something like that. You need to remember we are not able to produce an infinity number of unique sounds nor say or write for an infintiy time so if humans do the nameing then anything goes. Hey, it not to late to claim your own number! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/23 "2002-10-30T12:41:09Z")
Cek - No, no, no, no. Infinity does not mean “all possibilities and all combinations.” Perhaps a better, if not imperfect, idea would be “neverending.” For example, let’s look at the [system for naming heavy elements](http://www.chemicalelements.com/sup/sysname.html). Come up with any atomic number, and you will have a name which results using this formula. And no name will EVER contain any string other than the 10 letter combinations given. Sure, it ain’t practical or efficient, but for an element of theoretical atomic number 13257032 we can call it: untribipentseptniltribium. And, as a bonus, you even get the chemical symbol Utbpsntb. Even stretching this out to infinity, you will never reach a point where you will need to resort to other letters or prefixes. And you can’t, anyway, since those other letters and prefixes are outside your original definition. I’m not fluent in set theory, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but let’s take the set of all real numbers. We can say this set is infinite, yes? How many of these numbers are negative? An infinite number. Yet the integer +5 is not included in that set, even though the set itself is infinite. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/24 "2002-10-30T12:44:24Z")
Sorry, Cek, missed your last post. But I don’t think efficiency need be discussed in this conversation, as this is more a theoretical discussion than a practical one. At any point, though, no matter what naming system you use, it will become impractical to actually say the name of that number, so I don’t think efficiency is a point here. ---
**Author:** ![SlickRoenick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@SlickRoenick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlickRoenick)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/25 "2002-10-30T14:43:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dwc1970 \* > \*\*According to this [site](http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/large.html) we’re at least covered for numbers up to 10[sup]303[/sup] \*\* [Spinal Tap] This one goes to 11. [/Spinal Tap] ---
**Author:** ![Cabbage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/26 "2002-10-30T15:32:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Remember these are humans who are naming these for common use. So it needs to be something they can > A. say within their life time > B. Do the same with writing A human voice can only make finitely many sounds. In a set amount of time, these can be strung together in only finitely many permutations. So how many different numbers have a name that can be spoken in less than, say, 15 days? Only finitely many. The point being, no matter how you name them, the names of (infinitely many different) numbers will not be sayable in a lifetime (or several lifetimes). The same with writing. No matter how you attribute words to numbers, there will be numbers with arbitrarily long names (unless you do something like invent a different letter for each number, like I mentioned above). Names that have more letters in them than there are protons in the universe. So my “lalalala” naming system is, in the long run, no more or less inefficient than any other naming system, which would, by necessity, suffer from the same problem of having arbitrarily long names. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/27 "2002-10-30T18:01:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cek \* > **I’d paid to see someone try an use a sytem like that in real life!** I’m considering that line of work. How much did you pay? ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/28 "2002-10-30T21:29:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, at some point they would have to begin repeating names, **maybe adding a word or sound to show it a repetition**. Sort of like how we run out after one hundred, and we go back to one, but add the sound “one hundred” in front of it? And again after one thousand, and after one million, and … On the other hand, if you really want to repeat numbers, why not just use the same word for _every_ number? Everything is so much simpler: One plus one is one. One minus one is one. One times one is one. One divided by one is one, unless one equals one, in which case it’s one. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rhum\_Runner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rhum\_Runner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhum_Runner)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397/29 "2002-10-31T01:10:44Z")
I believe in HG2TG there is mention of the idea that if the universe is truly infinite, then everything must grow on a tree somewhere. I think, in this small way, that the HG2TG is wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-infinity/134397.md?page=1)