<story><title>Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)</title><url>https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/49034/is-infinity-an-odd-or-even-number</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexb_</author><text>No it isn&amp;#x27;t. If you ask a child what comes after infinity, &amp;quot;Infinity + 1&amp;quot; is pretty much the default answer. Any kid who knows multiplication knows &amp;quot;Infinity + Infinity&amp;quot; is the same as &amp;quot;Infinity Times Two&amp;quot;. The answer of &amp;quot;Infinity TIMES Infinity&amp;quot; is also popular for kids to say when they know a number bigger than their friend (who just proclaimed infinity is the largest number).</text></item><item><author>warent</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  In my experience with children, one of the easiest-to-grasp concepts of infinity is provided by the transfinite ordinals, since it can be viewed as a continuation of the usual counting manner of children, but proceeding into the transfinite:
  1,2,3,⋯,ω,ω+1,ω+2,⋯,ω+ω=ω⋅2,ω⋅2+1,⋯,ω⋅3,⋯,ω2,ω2+1,⋯,ω2+ω,⋯⋯
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Presumably this person has no experience with 6 year olds? This explanation is horrendous haha</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vmilner</author><text>Child: “Is 100 million the biggest number?”&lt;p&gt;Teacher: “Well, there’s 100 million and one”&lt;p&gt;Child: “I was pretty close then!”</text></comment>
<story><title>Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)</title><url>https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/49034/is-infinity-an-odd-or-even-number</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexb_</author><text>No it isn&amp;#x27;t. If you ask a child what comes after infinity, &amp;quot;Infinity + 1&amp;quot; is pretty much the default answer. Any kid who knows multiplication knows &amp;quot;Infinity + Infinity&amp;quot; is the same as &amp;quot;Infinity Times Two&amp;quot;. The answer of &amp;quot;Infinity TIMES Infinity&amp;quot; is also popular for kids to say when they know a number bigger than their friend (who just proclaimed infinity is the largest number).</text></item><item><author>warent</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  In my experience with children, one of the easiest-to-grasp concepts of infinity is provided by the transfinite ordinals, since it can be viewed as a continuation of the usual counting manner of children, but proceeding into the transfinite:
  1,2,3,⋯,ω,ω+1,ω+2,⋯,ω+ω=ω⋅2,ω⋅2+1,⋯,ω⋅3,⋯,ω2,ω2+1,⋯,ω2+ω,⋯⋯
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Presumably this person has no experience with 6 year olds? This explanation is horrendous haha</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bhk</author><text>I thought that most of us learn at an early age, as a result of this kind of exchange, that &amp;quot;infinity&amp;quot; is not &amp;quot;the biggest number&amp;quot; or even a number at all, as far as the ordinary notion of &amp;quot;number&amp;quot; goes.</text></comment>