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Bad news from Belgium - OT questions

Posted By: Tom Keith
Date: Monday, 11 October 2010, at 2:34 p.m.

In Response To: Bad news from Belgium - OT questions (Casper van der Tak)

Somehow, this seems very paradoxical. It also means that after having drawn a random number, you would need to say that the chance of drawing that particular random number was zero, which would be odd. Is the trick here that you cannot unambiguously point to 'that particular random number' because of the infinite series of figures behind the decimal point?! Or is asking this question wrong?

I think you're narrowing in on the source of confusion. It is not clear exactly how you would play this game. Do the players each write down their number and then a referee compares them to see which is larger?

This would seem to imply: (1) That we have a way to represent any real number. (2) That we have enough space to write it down. (3) That we have enough time to compare any two real numbers to see which is larger.

In other words, you can't really play this game in real life. Bob is talking about a theoretical game that has different properties than games we are used to playing.

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