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by ErikCorry 1423 days ago
Extend alphabetical names to alphabetical descriptions and you have a countable number of irrationals.

It's a bit suspicious that we can't name or describe any of the uncountable irrational numbers, isn't it? Not even a single example.

Cantor's proof is not constructive. It doesn't name an example. If you enumerated all irrationals based on the algorithm required to calculate them then the contradiction in Cantor's diagonalization proof just turns into a failure to terminate. But that suggests that there are fewer irrationals than integers, not more.

2 comments

You're limiting the existence of real numbers to our (human) capability of mentioning them. To me, that seems a rather arbitrary limit. Did I understand you correctly? If so, why do you accept infinity in the first place?
If you reduce the irrationals to those which can be named you are probably right. I think I said that before.
Named or described.