Jump to content

Puzzles/Set theory puzzles/Infinite Hotel/Solution

From Wikibooks, open books for an open world

Let us imagine a hotel with a finite number of rooms, and let us assume that all the rooms are occupied. When a new guest arrives and requests a room, the proprietor apologises, 'Sorry--all the rooms are full.' Now let us imagine a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, and let us assume that again all the rooms are occupied. But this time, when a new guest arrives and asks for a room, the proprietor exclaims, 'But of course!' and shifts the person in room 1 to room 2, the person in room 2 to room 3, the person in room 3 to room 4, and so on... The new guest then moves into room 1, which has now become vacant as a result of these transpositions. But now let us suppose an infinite number of new guests arrive, asking for rooms. 'Certainly, certainly!' says the proprietor, and he proceeds to move the person in room 1 into room 2, the person in room 2 into room 4, the person in room 3 into room 6, the person in room 4 into 8, and so on... . In this way, all the odd-numbered rooms become free, and the infinity of new guests can easily be accommodated in them.