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Reddit
reddit.com › r/english › to you, does "finite" mean "not zero" or "not infinite"?
r/ENGLISH on Reddit: To you, does "finite" mean "not zero" or "not infinite"?
September 8, 2023 -

Poll question: To you, does saying that something is "finite" mean that it is either (a) not zero, or (b) not infinite? I hear it used both ways quite frequently, and would be curious if how people use it correlates strongly by region and/or field.

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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Finite
Finiteness - Wikipedia
Finiteness, finitude, or being finite, is the state of being limited or having an end, and is a counter to the concept of infinity. Humans are considered to be in this state because of their limited life span, uniformly ending in death. Each natural number is considered to be in this state, ...
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Physics Forums
physicsforums.com › mathematics › general math
Finite & Infinite: Univerally Accepted Definitions? • Physics Forums
May 23, 2019 - The conversation also touches on the use of the term "finity," which is not widely recognized in English. Ultimately, the thread concludes that infinite is indeed the opposite of finite in cardinality, despite the complexities involved in ...
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Thesaurus.plus
thesaurus.plus › related › finite › infinite
Words Finite and Infinite have opposite meaning
How are the words Finite and Infinite related? Finite and Infinite are antonymous, they have opposite meaning.
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Cut the Knot
cut-the-knot.org › WhatIs › WhatIsFinite.shtml
What Is Finite?
What Is Finite? - Finite is the opposite of infinite; something is finite if it's not infinite. But there are many different notions of infinite; there are several for the idea of finite
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Quora
quora.com › What-is-the-opposite-of-infinity
What is the opposite of infinity? - Quora
Answer (1 of 16): I'll answer for "infinity" as the mathematical concept. Whenever someone treats infinity as a number, as you just did, I just switch off my mathematical formality and answer "intuitively". There are a lot of advanced concepts about infinity that can be discussed without leaving...
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WordHippo
wordhippo.com › what-is › the-opposite-of › infinite.html
What is the opposite of infinite?
Antonyms for infinite include limited, bounded, circumscribed, finite, restricted, confined, definite, measurable, brief and calculable. Find more opposite words at wordhippo.com!
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So in mathematics we measure the cardinality of a set with bijective functions/maps or one to one correspondences.

For example suppose you know that there are 100 seats in some movie theatre. When the movie starts, suppose it is a hit movie and fills up. In other words, there is a person for every seat in the theatre. Without counting the number of people, we can deduce that there are 100 people in the theatre. This is an example of a one to one correspondence (also known as a bijective function or map) between people and seats in the theatre, i.e. the cardinality of the people is the same as the cardinality of seats because for every seat there is one person sitting in it, and for every person there is one seat that they are sitting on.

There are two types of sets, countable and uncountable sets. Countable sets can either be finite or infinite, but uncountable sets are always infinite just a 'larger' infinite.

More precisely, A set X is finite if there is a bijection between the set X and the finite whole numbers, N_n={1,2,3,...,n}. If X is not finite, then X is infinite (they mean the same thing). Now concerning infinite sets, there are two types, countable and uncountable (here is the difference you seek). An infinite set is defined as countable if it is in one to one correspodence with the natural numbers, N={1,2,3,...,n,...}. An infinite set X is uncountable if there exists no bijective map between X and the natural numbers N. Note: Finite sets are also countable.

I think examples will be helpful here:

The set A={1,2,3,4,5} is finite and countable.

The set of integers is considered *infinite *and countable.

The set of real numbers (rational numbers and irrational numbers) is infinite and uncountable.

You can, informally, think of a countable set as a set where you are able to potentially list all of the elements of the set, and think of an uncountable set as saying there is no list that contains all the elements of the set. Naively, we can see that the real numbers are uncountable, because between any two real numbers there is another real number. Whereas there is no integer between the numbers 1 and 2.

Hope this helps!

Links for further reading:

http://gowers.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/a-short-post-on-countability-and-uncountability/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality

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infinite and not finite are per se, regarding the word, the very same thing.

Regarding mathematics: There are several possible kinds of infinite sets, such as countable and uncountable sets, how ever both are infinite (and not finite, which is the same).

You'd better restate your question on Math.SE as they can help you much better. Also have a look in an encyclopedia for “countable” and “uncountable” (or “countable set” and “uncountable set”).

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Merriam-Webster
merriam-webster.com › thesaurus › finite
FINITE Synonyms: 110 Similar and Opposite Words | Merriam-Webster Thesaurus
Synonyms for FINITE: limited, confined, restricted, measurable, fixed, discrete, specific, definable; Antonyms of FINITE: infinite, endless, unlimited, limitless, boundless, unbounded, unrestricted, illimitable
Top answer
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Here is some elaboration on the comments.

What Cantor showed was more precisely that if $X$ is any set, then the powerset of $X$ (that is, the set consisting of all subsets of $X$, written $\mathcal{P}(X)$) is strictly larger than $X$, even if $X$is infinitely large.

To make sense of this mathematically, we need to define what it means for one set to be strictly larger than another. One way to do this is to instead define what it means for one set to be at most as large as another, and then negate that.

I will for simplicity use the definition that $X\leq Y$ if there exists a surjective map $f: Y\to X$ (usually it is defined using an injective map in the other direction, but at least assuming the axiom of choice, these definitions are equivalent, and it makes the following argument simpler).

Now, to show that $\mathcal{P}(X)$ is strictly larger than $X$, we just need to show that $\mathcal{P}(X)\leq X$ is false.

So how to show that there cannot be a surjective map from $X$ to $\mathcal{P}(X)$? Well, this is where Cantor came up with a nice "trick".

Let $f: X\to\mathcal{P}(X)$ be an map. We wish to find some element in $\mathcal{P}(X)$ which is not in the image of $f$. To do this, we define the subset $Y$ of $X$ as follows: $Y = \{x\in X | x\not\in f(x)\}$. This is certainly a subset of $X$, so it is an element in $\mathcal{P}(X)$, and I now claim that this element is not in the image of $f$.

To see this, assume for the sake of contradiction that $y\in X$ is given such that $f(y) = Y$. Now we know that we must have either $y\in Y$ or $y\not\in Y$. But if $y\in Y$ then by definition of $Y$, we have $y\not\in f(y)$ but since we assumed $f(y) = Y$ this is a contradiction.

On te other hand, if $y\not\in Y$ then again by the definition of $Y$, we must have $y\in f(y)$ (since otherwise, we would have $y\in Y$. But again, since we assumed $f(y) = Y$ this is a contradiction.

All in all, our conclusion is that there cannot be an element $y\in X$ such that $f(y) = Y$, so $f$ is not surjective. But since this was for an arbitrary function $f$ from $X$ to $\mathcal{P}(X)$, there can be no surjective function from $X$ to $\mathcal{P}(X)$.

The previous arguments do not, however, show that there are any infinite sets at all, but if we want to have a theory of mathematics that includes all the natural numbers for example, we need to assume that some infinite set exists. And once we have one infinite set, the above arguments show us that we can always find a strictly larger set than any given one (as long as we are allowed to take powersets, but it would be hard to work without this).

Finally, it should be noted that if you are not used to working with this concept of "size" of sets, then it might seem obvious that we can always get a larger set, by just adding an extra element. But it turns out that once you start looking at infinite sets, it takes some work to make them strictly larger, so for example, taking the cartesian product of two infinite sets does not result in a strictly larger set.

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No.

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ScienceABC
scienceabc.com › home › eye openers › what is the opposite of infinity?
Opposite Of Infinite: What Is The Opposite Of Infinity?
October 19, 2023 - No, the answer isn’t zero. Infinity is the largest number there is, so the opposite of infinity would be the smallest number there is. Zero would mean nothing, so what we’re looking for is a number just greater than zero.
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Theopolis Institute
theopolisinstitute.com › home › finite and infinite
Finite and Infinite - Theopolis Institute
July 9, 2012 - Several friends have objected to this statement of mine from a recent post on natures and substances: “‘The finite cannot contain the infinite’ was an axiom of Greek philosophy.
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Quora
quora.com › What-is-the-definition-of-finite-Why-is-it-called-finite-rather-than-infinite
What is the definition of 'finite'? Why is it called 'finite' rather than 'infinite'? - Quora
Answer (1 of 4): 'Finite' is 'finite', and not equal to 'infinite'; 'finite' has boundary while 'infinite' has not. Great numbers, whatever great you may imagine, they are not nearly equal to 'infinite' but to zero without limit when compared ...
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WordHippo
wordhippo.com › what-is › the-opposite-of › finite.html
What is the opposite of finite?
Antonyms for finite include infinite, boundless, endless, limitless, unbounded, illimitable, immeasurable, unlimited, dimensionless and indefinite. Find more opposite words at wordhippo.com!
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The Student Room
thestudentroom.co.uk › showthread.php
What is the "opposite" of infinity - The Student Room
Zero makes more sense, but still if zero is the opposite of infinity then with this zero there can be no potential for 1 (or anything else) which means if zero is the opposite of infinity then there is only zero, and if there is only zero then that zero is in effect infinite... I think "finite" is the best answer seeing as infinity is a concept not a number...
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Quora
quora.com › Whats-the-difference-between-finite-infinite-definite-and-indefinite
What's the difference between finite, infinite, definite, and indefinite? - Quora
Answer (1 of 3): I am assuming you mean this in reference to grammar rather than just the meanings of the words. Definite and indefinite are relatively easy to explain and understand. In English, the definite article is “the” and the indefinite article is “a/an”. When we want to talk about a gen...
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Merriam-Webster
merriam-webster.com › thesaurus › infinite
INFINITE Synonyms: 39 Similar and Opposite Words | Merriam-Webster Thesaurus
Synonyms for INFINITE: endless, limitless, boundless, unlimited, vast, immeasurable, measureless, fathomless; Antonyms of INFINITE: finite, limited, confined, definite, restricted, bounded, circumscribed, measurable