Meanderings : 7,000 posts

[Keyser59]

Civilian usually you denote positive or negative infinity to show continuously increasing or negatively increasing numbers.

There is a well established difference.

[Black Mage]

i'm not going to waste my keystrokes over this...

[BobTheJanitor]

Hey guys. 0.999... = 1

Argue that now.  

[Decimator]

i'm not going to waste my keystrokes over this...

You just did Black Mage...

[Dirty Harry Potter]

Hey guys. 0.999... = 1

Argue that now. 

1/3 = 0.3333333
thus 3/3 is discussably 0.999999999, but it is 1...

Edit: this is caused by our 'change of "unit" system'(lack of better word/expression) per tens, if we had another system a 1/3 wouldn't be a problem, however other fractions would.

[a civilian]

Civilian usually you denote positive or negative infinity to show continuously increasing or negatively increasing numbers.

There is a well established difference.

But that is only when infinity is viewed as a mere concept, designed only to serve such fuctions as that which you mention.  When infinity is viewed as the quotient of any number and zero, it becomes apparent that infinity is neither positive nor negative.

[Keyser59]

Civilian usually you denote positive or negative infinity to show continuously increasing or negatively increasing numbers.

There is a well established difference.

But that is only when infinity is viewed as a mere concept, designed only to serve such fuctions as that which you mention.  When infinity is viewed as the quotient of any number and zero, it becomes apparent that infinity is neither positive nor negative.

Actually, in your case if a limit of a function as x approaches 0 of 1/x, then yes the function approaches both positive infinite and negative infinity.

If the function was 1/(x^2), then it would only opproach positive infinity.

See the difference?

[a civilian]

Yes, but that is similar to how as x approaches infinity of 1/x, the function approaches zero from both the positive and the negative sides, while with 1/(x^2), it approaches zero only from the positive side.  And yet zero is not said to have both a positive and a negative value.