Infinity and our Existence

[Adamaja456]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Well, yes. We're now actually pretty sure the visible universe is significantly larger than simply the age multiplied by the speed of light though, because of inflation. But yes there could be any amount of 'space' outside of what we can see right now.



You don't need to chart the end of the universe. If something is expanding quantifiably, by definition it is not infinite. It's as simple as that. Why? Unless the rate of expansion is infinity, the universe will always have a measurable, finite size if it is expanding quantifiably.

But uh, either way I think WMAP can see the whole universe using old light. It is generally understood that the universe is finite but has no physical boundary. That is, you are never going to get to somewhere and hit a wall or see the end of space. It doesn't work that way...think of it like earth where you'll just keep going around and around. The difference here being up into the sky is another dimension we're incapable of perceiving, and thus cannot leave the universe.

To imagine this you have to put yourself in the higher dimension. We are like stick figures drawn onto a paper ball. We don't have the spatial capacity to leave the paper ball, yet although the ball appears two dimensional to us, it is actually three dimensional.





The problem here is you can't expand to infinity, so no this wouldn't make the balloon infinite. If you can measure the space inside the balloon at any given time, it is not infinite. In order for the balloon to be infinite it would have to reach a state of infinitely fast expansion.

And uh, that would destroy the universe so it's out of the question It is a rather well known problem for us now, that in around 50 billion years or so the universe is going to be expanding far too fast for energy to maintain the state we know it as. Thankfully we won't be around for the universal annihilation though ;o

yea you seem to make a clear point. Thanks for the information. That has helped me understand a little bit better about our universe=]

Thank You

~Adam

[slipstrike0159]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Incorrect. At least with respect to our universe. All WMAP observations confirm with great detail the big bang, and that the universe is still expanding. Since the universe is still observably expanding, by definition it is not infinite as it is bound by the finite rate of expansion.

Actually, to make this the most correct statement you would have to change it to say "the universe as we currently define it". Everyone thinks of the universe as a giant sphere expanding into nothingness, however, it would also be plausible to think that in nothingness there is also another sphere that is expanding which would also be a "universe" such as jewpins multiverse. If we were to gain knowledge that would lead us to believe this, then our concept of the universe would shift to being what contains the two rapidly expanding spheres. In this such case, it could be infact infinite if knowledge continues to grow without a stopping point.

Also, infinity in of itself is a concept and nothing more. You cannot prove or disprove infinity because you are bound to finite lives in the realm of time and existence. If you could infact break these bonds and live outside of time which allows you to see it as a whole, then you could see a specific even never ending. Aside from this, it is just a concept used to describe an event (such in math) where and increase or decrease of data will not end according to its parameters.

[coolade123]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Scientists say, I believe, that if you keep going in the Universe, you will eventually hit another planet indenticle to ours, with people living on it and technology like ours. I am very confused with this subject but it is a very interesting one.

Also I'm not sure if this deserves to be in another thread, but now we get to the idea of black holes. If you get sucked through a black hole where would you go? Science proves that black holes exist, but where do they take you? I would expect them to take you to a completely other Universe so maybe there are other Universes.

[devonin]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Well, there's a theory out there that there exists something called white holes, that simply eject matter, that could possibly be the "other side" of black holes, but since the gravity in a black hole is so intense that even light can't escape it (Thus why it's a -black- hole) there doesn't exist even the possibility that something as fragile as a human could somehow survive transit through one.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

There's actually conjecture these days that Black Holes might be driven by a force other than gravity. I don't know how white holes are purported to work, but black holes actually emit information in the form of heat radiated from them IIRC which corresponds to what went into the black hole.

[devonin]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Which implies perhaps that matter entering black holes is somehow broken down into some form of kinetic energy?

[Relambrien]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

EDIT: I use the word "theory" here not in a scientific sense, meaning I don't mean "theory" to mean "an explanation for a phenomenon supported by several experiments." I mean it to mean "a proposed explanation of a phenomenon." I know it's not the right way to use the word, but I realized what I did after posting, so just bear with me.

Wikipedia has a great set of articles on black wholes and white holes; I won't bother listing everything here because most of it is beyond my comprehension, but I suggest looking at it if you're interested in the topic.

Also, Reach spoke about "the end of the universe," as the universe is expanding at an increasing rate. If this trend continues, the result will be either the "Big Rip" or "Big Freeze," (which can also be found on Wikipedia). The "Big Rip" theory simply says that once the universe expands at a sufficiently fast rate, the space between atoms will extend to the point where objects are broken down, largest to smallest. Galaxies will break apart, followed by solar systems, then planets, then the things on the planets (e.g. us), and finally the atoms themselves.

The "Big Freeze" says that as the space between atoms increases, heat necessarily decreases since heat is caused by the friction between atoms, which would decrease. Once the atoms are sufficiently spaced apart, friction will become low enough to reduce everything in the universe to, I believe, absolute zero.

Those are just two theories however; Wikipedia has an entire article about the end of the universe you could look at for more. The "Big Crunch" theory is also interesting to look at.

[Reach]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Also I'm not sure if this deserves to be in another thread, but now we get to the idea of black holes. If you get sucked through a black hole where would you go? Science proves that black holes exist, but where do they take you? I would expect them to take you to a completely other Universe so maybe there are other Universes.

In reality you would never be able to get anywhere near a black hole. The radiation it gives off would kill you long before much of anything happened. Even if you did somehow get past that part, which you wouldn't, the gravitational force would kill you before even reaching the part of the hole that is completely black ;o

So no worries about getting through to the other side, although there probably isn't one. If you were to keep going deeper into the hole you would reach a singularity, which is a very mysterous place indeed. There is little agreement as to what is actually going on in the singularity and what it is, other than being an incredibly small point at the center, and the source of an astronomically large gravitational force in a tiny space. General relativity and classical mechanics fail completely at describing the singularity.


Relambrien brings up some of the other end of the universe hypothesis, however, the big rip and freeze are really different descriptions of the same scenario. The data we have right now only supports this hypothesis, and the big crunch is impossible given the current composition of the universe. The universe is nearly 3/4 dark energy, and there is no sufficient gravitational force to stop the expansion at this point.

[Master_of_the_Faster]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

In reality you would never be able to get anywhere near a black hole. The radiation it gives off would kill you long before much of anything happened. Even if you did somehow get past that part, which you wouldn't, the gravitational force would kill you before even reaching the part of the hole that is completely black ;o

Ok, so perhaps we wouldn't just send human beings randomly if we knew that blackholes would kill us with radiation or a gravitational force, but would it be reasonable if we send some sort of item that could get past these barriers and go to see what is on the "other side"?

[devonin]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Something that small that generates enough gravity to pull light directly into it is not (Correct me if I'm wrong, science people) that anything manmade could possibly survive.

[aperson]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

This thread took a turn for the asinine when everyone started asking whether the universe was infinite in size. I've got a more interesting place for you to look,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_halting_problem

The halting problem entirely breaks down our struggle with infinity, and it's been demonstrated to be unsolvable.

Adamaj kind of blindsided this thread with a bunch of silly discussions about the size of the universe as we know it, but asking about whether the universe is infinite or finite is completely irrelevant to a much more interesting infinity that's lurking right in front of us.

As sentient beings that have the ability to create meaning, we have infinity lurking in front of us inside even trivially small spaces. Even though the base, the universe we live in, might be finite, there are infinite construals of it which provide maps of meaning onto how we see the world. We'll never see the base as it truly is, but instead we'll interpret it through a spring of mappings from the base which we impute.

[jewpinthethird]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Something that small that generates enough gravity to pull light directly into it is not (Correct me if I'm wrong, science people) that anything manmade could possibly survive.

Due to the nature of blackholes, objects are stretched, which means if a human were to cross over the event horizon, they would be torn apart by the gravity. Even, if they were in some kind of enclosure, the stretching would still occur as the person pass over the event horizon.

[chunky_cheese]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

Can infinite entities and finite entities even exist in the same universe? Does infinity even exist at all?

God is simply there. There was no time he was created, and no time he has been around for. Always been, always is nothing. God has been around for 0 hours x infinity. Basically, don't try to think of infinity as going on and on and on, but simply as something that is stopped, and does not move.

Using Hollus's logic I can disprove time, infinity is forever, so there is no point in counting or using time, thus it is stopped forever. If our time does not exist to Infinity, and infinity does not exist to us, then what is time itself?

Us humans use revolutions of solar bodies as a form of measuring time.

[Master_of_the_Faster]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

I don't believe any claims of any God without hardcore evidence. As for time, I get where people are coming from now. Time is indeed a manmade creation, but no one would really know that it would be false as a concept for ever just because humans made it and it never seems to stop. To me, as far as humans are concerned, the only reason time is made is to make limits on how much time a human consumes doing what ever in their own life time (probably no bearing on what time really means if it were for infinity [this also means stopped for infinity]). I don't think that anyone ever intended for time to go so deep into the idea of infinity, but here it is waiting to be debated.

Edit: If time really is frozen, that doesn't disprove the idea of time's existance. After all, 0 seconds itself is considered time. Time being frozen would still be a measurement of nothing happening.

[Aa_Doodaa]

Re: Infinity and our Existence

God is completely illogical, I think we can all agree on that. There has been no evidence supporting God that is strong enough to be brought up against that which supports evolution.

I have only read so far on this thread, and this is what i have to say on what was brought up a page or two ago:

agreed.
The fact that Space is infinite bring up another interesting question. Do people really think we were the only intelligent planet in an infinite space?

To summarize:
• Compared to infinity, rational numbers are equal to zero.
• Compared to infinity, finite amounts of time are equal to zero.

Considering these two quotes went hand-in-hand, and that the assumption of an infinite, never ending universe is true:

Earth, the only planet known to be capable of supporting living organisms (in present time), is unquestionably finite. To stretch the quote from Hollus a bit, I will consider that he agrees to the fact that compared to infinity, finite beings are equal to zero.

Seeing as such is true, Earth, compared to the assumed infinite universe, is equal to zero. This would mean that, taking into account the infinite universe, the probably of there being another planet capable of supporting life is 1 (100%).

Then considering that Earth and this second planet capable of supporting life, when compared to the infinite universe, are still equal to zero, leaving again a probably of 1 that there is yet another planet capable of support life. This pattern would continue on forever, leaving the conclusion that there is an infinite amount of other planets capable of supporting life.