Uday M. answered • 09/27/19
M.S. Engineering, 5+ years of teaching experience
Let's think about the meaning of the words discrete and continuous. The best way to describe 'discrete' is if something can be counted. Conversely, 'continuous' is when you have an infinite number of possibilites within a defined range.
For example, if you asked "how many cans of soda are there", that would be discrete, because you can count the number of cans of soda. It's either 1 or 2 or 3, etc. You can't have 1.5 cans or 1.0005 cans. Same thing for the price of soda, it's either $2.00 or $2.53, it can't be $2.0000001. There are a finite number of possibilies within a defined range -- if I say that the cost is between $2 and $3, you know there's exactly 99 possibilities for how much the soda costs. You can count them all out.
However, for the amount of soda, you can have an infinite number of possibilities. You can have 1.0 oz, or 1.01 or 1.001 or 1.00000001 and so on. Therefore it would be continuous.
Romero C.
Thank you so much for your through answer. However, aren't cans of soda standardized? Aren't they supposed to have just a determined volume of soda? and therefore they have a finite number of possibilities? I always know that the most popular can has 12 FL.Oz for example, isn't that discrete?09/27/19