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Encyclopedia—numberThe Real NumbersThe real numbers are those representable by an infinite decimal expansion, which may be repeating or nonrepeating; they are in a one-to-one correspondence with the points on a straight line and are sometimes referred to as the continuum. Real numbers that have a nonrepeating decimal expansion are called irrational, i.e., they cannot be represented by any ratio of integers. The Greeks knew of the existence of irrational numbers through geometry; e.g.,  is the length of the diagonal of a unit square. The proof that  is unable to be represented by such a ratio was the first proof of the existence of irrational numbers, and it caused tremendous upheaval in the mathematical thinking of that time. Sections in this article: The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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