TITLE: Diagonalisation argument for real numbers
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: I know that the the set of real numbers has been proved uncountable by mathematicians, so my question is why this is wrong.
In countability arguments that I have seen the numbers are laid out in a grid with 1,2,3,4,... as rows and columns and the number at the nth row and mth column is n/m. So what if we have an extra dimension k, that represents the power, so at depth 3 the power is 1/3
so it becomes $ ({\frac{n}{m}})^{(\frac{1}{k})} $.
It should be possible to visit every position in the cube by a similar procedure akin to the one used for 2 dimensional grid.
Any non fractional power will give another rational number so only 1/k is actually necessary. While this only appears to work for the solution to a polynomial, such solutions are not rational numbers. Which would make some sets of irrational numbers countable, but that doesn't quite make sense to me.
So therefore there must be something wrong with my ideas but I don't know what it is.

REPLY [4 votes]: There is nothing wrong with some sets of irrational numbers being countable. For example, $\{\sqrt 2\}$ is a countable set of irrational numbers, as is the set of all (irrational) algebraic numbers (that is, roots of polynomials with rational coefficients; this includes all the numbers you have listed), or the singleton of any real number whatsoever (or even any singleton at all, for that matter).
But that is beside the point. The point is, the set of all real numbers is not countable, as Cantor's diagonal argument shows. I'm not going to cite this argument here, as it is readily found just about anywhere (like Wikipedia).