Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by pwdisswordfish2 2241 days ago
There is no smallest positive infinitesimal either. At least in theories that manage to define those rigorously. And it’s mostly a formal trick anyway; standard epsilon-delta calculus avoids them entirely.

Had you actually meaningfully studied this subject, or did you just link to a Wikipedia article you half-heartedly skimmed one day?

2 comments

That's a funny way to say, "No, I think you misunderstand. I mean to say no single infinitesimal number exists. Like infinity, the concept exists, but as a literal single number, no."
> There is no smallest positive infinitesimal either.

There is in the surreal and hyperreal number systems. I got that from skimming wikipedia though....