TITLE: Applications of cardinal numbers
QUESTION [7 upvotes]: I know basic things about cardinality (I'm only in High School) like that since $\mathbb{Q}$ is countable, its cardinality is $\aleph_0$. Also that the cardinality of $\mathbb{R}$ is $2^{\aleph_0}$.

Are there any direct applications of these numbers outside of theoretical math?

I know this can be convenient for certain proofs and help understanding sets of numbers, but are there any applications of this?

REPLY [2 votes]: Quoted from Christian Marks blog(blog seems to be gone now):

In an unexpected development for the depressed market for mathematical logicians, Wall Street has begun quietly and aggressively recruiting proof theorists and recursion theorists for their expertise in applying ordinal notations and ordinal collapsing functions to high-frequency algorithmic trading. Ordinal notations, which specify sequences of ordinal numbers of ever increasing complexity, are being used by elite trading operations to parameterize families of trading strategies of breathtaking sophistication.
The monetary advantage of the current strategy is rapidly exhausted after a lifetime of approximately four seconds — an eternity for a machine, but barely enough time for a human to begin to comprehend what happened. The algorithm then switches to another trading strategy of higher ordinal rank, and uses this for a few seconds on one or more electronic exchanges, and so on, while opponent algorithms attempt the same maneuvers, risking billions of dollars in the process.
The elusive and highly coveted positions for proof theorists on Wall Street, where they are known as trans-quantitative analysts, have not been advertised, to the chagrin of executive recruiters who work on commission. Elite hedge funds and bank holding companies have been discreetly approaching mathematical logicians who have programming experience and who are familiar with arcane software such as the ordinal calculator. A few logicians were offered seven figure salaries, according to a source who was not authorized to speak on the matter.