[Math] Why do transcendental numbers exist

soft-questiontranscendental-numbers

(This is a revision of the below question, which was not clear. If I have used incorrect terminology, please offer corrections.)

Given the sets $A$ and $B$, $B$ contains transcendental elements relative to $A$ if there is no surjective function mapping $A$ onto $B$. The elements in $B$ to which there is no mapping from $A$ are the transcendental elements.

This would seem to imply that given sets $A$ and $B$, transcendentals would exist in $B$ (relative to $A$) if the cardinality of $B$ is greater than the cardinality of $A$. This would hold true for the cardinalities $10$ and $20$, $\aleph_0$ and $\aleph_1$, etc., and for any algebra over a field that has a relative difference in cardinalities.

Is my reasoning above sound? If so, this would answer my question as to why the transcendental numbers exist.


This was an attempt to clarify my thoughts.

Does there exist any algebra over a field, such that:

  • the number of elements in the field is uncountable; and
  • there exists an element of the field, $q$; and
  • every element of the field can be calculated using a finite number of operations involving $q$ and only $q$?

The text below was the original question.

My understanding is that a transcendental number is a number that is not a root of any non-zero polynomial equation with rational coefficients. I understand the transcendentals exist, but why?

I am not looking for a proof of their existence within $\mathbb{C}$, but rather trying to understand why they would show up in any set of numbers at all.

I can think of Gödel's incompleteness theorems as a metaphor, and perhaps a transcendental number is like an unprovable proposition, but I don't know if that would be a good comparison. It could be the case that any, some, or most fields have something equivalent to transcendentals, but I do not know if that is true.

Best Answer

Why do transcendental numbers exist?

Because reals are uncountable, but algebraics aren't.

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