Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro Newsgroups: comp.theory Subject: Re: Cantor Diagonal Proof Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2025 07:33:05 -0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 29 Message-ID: References: <7EKdnTIUz9UkpXL6nZ2dnZfqn_ednZ2d@brightview.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2025 09:33:06 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="f78cf1e5c1ddc713eed346e8c1706a10"; logging-data="3368574"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+QRhaO16eG+hOwAmsaa4Aw" User-Agent: Pan/0.162 (Pokrosvk) Cancel-Lock: sha1:iy5OBK1w+dX1leUqvRabNz+G9QE= Bytes: 2482 On Sun, 6 Apr 2025 23:38:25 +0100, Richard Heathfield wrote: > On 06/04/2025 23:01, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > >> On Sun, 6 Apr 2025 07:53:06 +0100, Richard Heathfield wrote: >> >>> After infinitely many steps ... >> >> I.e. never. > > If you mean you can never know all the digits, hey, you're right. > No algorithm can derive the number. It's incomputable. That’s not what “incomputable” means. > But "never" is a strong word. Like anything in mathematics, you need proof before claiming something. This is why we have proof-by-induction: it’s essentially the only way to make generalized statements about infinite sequences. Instead of an infinite number of propositions to be proved, it boils the whole lot down to two: P(1) P(N) ⊢ P(N + 1) I gave my proof-by-induction; it is up to you to try to tear it down. If you can.