Comment on near zero

• cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I’m not saying the numbers stop. But there are numbers where concepts like “closer to zero” or “number before [another number]” don’t apply.

  For example There is no sensible way to define a less-than for the complex numbers and thus they can’t be ordered.

  source

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    i would argue that you can probably independently define an ordering mechanism. And then apply it.

    You can just pretend that 100 is 0. I see no reason this shouldn’t apply to everything else.

    source

    • cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      What do you mean by independent? There is no more general and independent notion of ordering than a less-than operator. The article above oulines a mathematical proof that no such definition exists in a consistent way for the complex numbers.

      source