diff --git a/IPython/utils/version.py b/IPython/utils/version.py
index 01b42c9..1de0047 100644
--- a/IPython/utils/version.py
+++ b/IPython/utils/version.py
@@ -22,39 +22,6 @@ from distutils.version import LooseVersion
 # Code
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-class NumericalVersion(LooseVersion):
-    """A version of LooseVersion that is *always* comparable
-    
-    String elements (of any kind!) are interpreted as infinite.
-    Since these are generally only on development branches,
-    that is fairly safe, even though technically 1.0a1 should be less than 1.0.
-    """
-    def parse (self, vstring):
-        # I've given up on thinking I can reconstruct the version string
-        # from the parsed tuple -- so I just store the string here for
-        # use by __str__
-        self.vstring = vstring
-        components = filter(lambda x: x and x != '.',
-                            self.component_re.split(vstring))
-        for i in range(len(components)):
-            try:
-                components[i] = int(components[i])
-            except ValueError:
-                # this is the only change
-                components[i] = float('inf')
-
-        self.version = components
-
-def version_tuple(vs):
-    """Return a tuple of numbers from a version string.
-    
-    'dev' 'a', 'etc' are transformed to float('inf'),
-    so they will always compare positively to any
-    regular integer element.
-    """
-    return tuple(NumericalVersion(vs).version)
-
-#
 def check_version(v, check):
     """check version string v >= check
 
@@ -66,4 +33,4 @@ def check_version(v, check):
         return LooseVersion(v) >= LooseVersion(check)
     except TypeError:
         return True
-    
\ No newline at end of file
+