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Re: I Have Always Heard That Matter Can Neither Be Created Nor Destroyed

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Posted by Jon Maucher/">Jon Maucher on March 16, 1999 06:06:19 UTC

: In math, as a number goes to 0, with out reaching 0, the number eventually becomes small enough that it is 0, for example, if you take 1/2, and square it, you get 1/4, then 1/8, and so on. Eventually, you get to numbers so small, that when plotted on a number line are equal to zero.

Not exactly, simply because a number is very small does not make it zero. 1/1000000 is very small, but not 0. The limit of 1/x^2 (the function that produced 1/2, 1/4, 1/8...) is 0, but the numbers will never equal zero.

The converse of this is highly relevant to astronomy. x^2 for any x very large is not infinity. While one billion is very large what about 11 light years, etc., etc., ad nauseum

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