Johnny Ball

speaker
103 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Sep 2012 last heard May 2013

Johnny Ball’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months
No recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment
You asked, what is the number before infinity?
Well, as infinity goes on forever, you can't have the number before infinity.
Because whatever that number is, however big it is, if you added one more, you'd have another number that's bigger.
So you can't have the number before infinity.
It goes on forever.
But it's not just children who struggle with the concept of infinity.
Virtually everything we talk about is finite.
The number of molecules of air in the atmosphere is finite.
They could be counted.
There's a number you can't go beyond.
But infinity goes beyond that, you know.
If you have a square, it's got four sides, and it will fit into a circle.
If you have a hexagon that fits into a circle, it's six sides, and it still fits into a circle.
If you have an octagon with eight sides that fits into a circle, all well and good.
How far can you go?
Many sides can you have to a figure.
that will still fit in a circle.
Well, the definition of a circle is an infinite number of points, a set distance from a central point that together make up that circle.
Right.
Can you help?
Showing 41–60 of 103 · page 3 of 6 ← Previous Next →