Alright, walter has been beheaded. poor guy ...
here is how he could have proven to the overlords that the infinite set 'R' was greater in size than the infinite set 'N' :
given the fact that 'N' is countable
All he had to do was to show that |R| > |N|.
He could have done it in a few different ways, here is a way he could have used:
Step 1: he could have shown that |[0,1[|*> |N|.
To prove that he could have shown that there existed no surjective function 'f: N -> [0,1[' for any Naturals.
which by definition of surjective functions means the following: there is at least one element in the interval [0,1[ that is pointed by no element from the naturals
This is easily shown by the following:
Be 'a<n,i>' numbers from 0 to 9 that match the following
f(0) = 0.a<0,0>a<0,1>a<0,2> ...
f(1) = 0.a<1,0>a<1,1>a<1,2> ...
f(2) = 0.a<2,0>a<2,1>a<2,2> ...
.
.
.
these functions obviously represent any real numbers in the interval [0,1[.
now let's build a function that will never meet any numbers built by any of those functions
Be 'B(i)' , numbers from 0 to 8 assigned in the following order
B(i) = 4 <if a<i,i> != 4>
B(i) = 5 <if a<i,i> == 5>
we then have the real number:
b = 0.B(1)B(2)B(3)B(4)...
the real number 'B' is obviously inside the interval [0,1[ but will never be equal to any value obtained by any 'f' functions.
we then have 'B' != f(i) for any Natural numbers
so B is never part of the image of any f-function.
we then have that obviously, |[0,1[| >*|N| since there exist no surjective function f: N -> [0,1[.
Now, going from there to the next step is easy:
We know that [0,1[ is included inside the Real numbers.
so by definition we have, |[0,1[| <= |R|.
Since we found in Step 1 that |N| < |[0,1[|, we then have this relationship between the three sets:
|N| < |[0,1[| <= |R|
which by the transitivity of '<' is equal to:
|N| < |R|.
We then have it, |R| > |N| thus proving that the cardinality of the real numbers is greater than the cardinality of the naturals