Positive and Negative Infinity
In addition to the wackyness of NaN
, floating point numbers can also represent both positive
and negative infinity.
You can get positive infinity by dividing any positive number by zero.
double positiveInfinity = 1.0 / 0.0;
You can get negative infinity by dividing any negative number by zero.
double negativeInfinity = -1.0 / 0.0;
As you might expect, positive infinity is greater than any number and negative infinity is less than any number.
// true
System.out.println(positiveInfinity > 99999999);
// true
System.out.println(negativeInfinity < -99999999);
Except for NaN
, of course.
double nan = 0.0 / 0.0;
// false
System.out.println(positiveInfinity > nan);
// false
System.out.println(negativeInfinity < nan);