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Re: Teaching science on the edge of knowledge

Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET> wrote>>>
because infinity is not a number on a number line??
it's a set of numbers? there are in infinite set of infinities???

Douglas Reed wrote:
A rather limited analogy would be a student asking what number
comes after infinity on a number line. There is no answer because
of the question itself.

Thank you for further illustrating a point that I feel I did not express well enough the first time, so let me amplify. The posited question reveals a gross misunderstanding on the part of the inquirer, in this case of the concept of infinity. Any attempt to answer the question is unsatisfactory, as you aptly demonstrate. Similarly, cosmological misunderstandings are revealed when students ask questions such as "what is on the other side of the edge of the universe." We would serve learners better by dealing with the misunderstanding than trying to directly answer the question.