There are different types of numbers, for instance:
- Integers - whole numbers
- Reals - (I may sometimes use the term scalars which strictly should be used when a real number is scaling a vector) - numbers which may have decimal point and/or exponent. In computers reals are stored using floating point values.
- Complex Numbers - numbers with real and imaginary parts.
- Matrices - arrays of numbers.
and these numbers may be coded in different ways:
- binary
- octal
- decimal
- hexadecimal
Unless otherwise specified we usually assume that numbers are decimal.
Infinity
Infinity is a number bigger than any real number
Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. He believed he was God's messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity.
He discovered a whole hierarchy of infinities.
He devised the continuum hypothesis but failed to prove or disprove it.
