[snarfy]

I tend to think of real numbers as a composite made of whole numbers and an operator.

[ducttapecrown]

Those are the algebraic numbers.

[Smaug123]

Which operator?

[snarfy]

It depends on the real. 0.5 would be 1/2 using division operator, while an irrational like square root of 2 is using the power and division operators (raising to the 1/2 power).