(Apparently I was extremely unclear with this text. For clarity: if you want to actually understand surreal numbers, go and read On Numbers and Games, by Conway, which is a delightful book; or get an LLM to talk you through Wikipedia. Original text follows.)

It’s a terrible explanation. A surreal number is defined as a pair of sets of surreal numbers (where you fiddle around the recursion in that definition by defining them in waves, so strictly speaking you’re defining “the surreal numbers born at time T” for each individual T given access to the surreal numbers born at all earlier times, and then you “take the union across all times”, scare quotes because there are too many times for this to result in a set). Zero is a surreal number but the LLM is using the word “zero” to mean “the set containing just the surreal number 0”; “nothing” here is the LLM’s obtuse word for the empty set. Wikipedia may actually be easier to follow.

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kdisndjwjdje 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you can’t explain it better in the same amount of characters (or fewer), then I don’t think you’re qualified to “nuh-uh!!!” anyone. Sorry buddy.

	▲	Smaug123 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I mean, I was intending to supply the words that would link the LLM’s explanation to a more normal one, not to explain it; apparently that was extremely unclear. An actual explanation is much longer, as indeed I attempted to indicate by pointing to Wikipedia and saying that it might be more clear. “Doing better than a totally useless explanation in fewer characters” is in general impossible, of course, eg if the first explanation has only one character.

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skeledrew 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

... wut? :/