Answer to Question #10606 in Abstract Algebra for mukul roi

Question

What are real numbers?

Answer 1

real numbers are :& 1,-2, 0.25, sqrt(2),pie,e,1/4....
In fact, nearly all numbers you know from the school course are real numbers. Example of numbers which are not real: sqrt(-1), infinity. In pure mathematics there are another concepts of numbers which are not real, but this is rocket science, so to speak.
Real numbers did not have a name before imaginary numbers showed up. They got called "real" because they are not imaginary.