Cpt. Drill Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 How possile is it that the universe is infinatly big... :eek: Hello everyone you may read this and shun me due to this being my first post and me not being of competant age to engage in this kind of discussion or it could be to my mind boggleingly bad spelling? Well me and a friend had a discussion about the universe today and it made me actually think! Basically how likely is it that the univers is infact INFINATE!? :friday: We thought about it and it seems very very silly but also one of the best ideas i have heard of... I like the idea that if the univers is infinate then somewhere out there, there are infinate versions of me each slightly different... so if you fallow on another planet there would be another me another you.. and there would be a slight difference such as... The third Reik actually is lasting its 1000 predicted years...? Maybe there is one where Giants rule the land and people fight them in small groups... Or silliest of all there could be a world where Episode One was good!? BOGGLED! well... just wondering what other learned people think...!? :eek: Thankyou for your time :xx: Tom Von Clarkenstein Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffy Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 Infinite, is unbelieveably, improbably, incredibly big. Big, big, big, big, big, big. So big that even the Brobdignagians could not describe to you how big it is. Now to answer your question: we're pretty sure our own Universe is finite, and as such, although it would take you a *really* long time, you could count every sub atomic particle in the entire universe and measure its current state. Then you could use some math to come up with how many other universes there could be with all the different states that all those particles could possibly have and you'd have a really big number of universes. Problem is, although that's a really, really, REALLY, big number, its still finite. Welcome to Hypography Tom! Cheers,Buffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bumab Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 It's really improper to even think of infinity as being "big." It will just screw you up. "Big" implies a definied area, i.e. bigger then smaller. Big is something we can measure, "How big is it?" Infinite really has no spatial dimensions, because it does not have boundaries with which to define those dimensions. Infinite just "is." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffy Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 It's really improper to even think of infinity as being "big." It will just screw you up.I'd prolly have to agree with this, but lots of people start with the concept of "big" in trying to understand infinite. The effect I was going for here was the "imagine the biggest thing you can: no matter what, infinite is always bigger than that." Colloquial, in accurate, but it starts to convey the mental breakthrough you need to get "infinite." We also have to live with that marketing tripe (I can say that because I do marketing) of "Beyond the Infinite"... Cheers,Buffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleAl Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 1) The word is infinite.2) Infinities come in different sizes - the work of Georg Cantor (1845-1918) and following.3) You can only observe the universe within your light cone. The whole is larger.4) Properly stated, the universe is finite and unbounded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt. Drill Posted May 16, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 So what are the boundrys of space?How sure are you that the universe is finate? :friday: is there any chance that the universe is INFINATE!? :eek: In theory if the universe was INFINATE it covers all possiblities right? Well would that cover things like the universe not being Infinate... and there being nothing... just a big nothing? Its a possibility and it is INFINATE (I am not trying to annoy people with the caps on infinate... I just want you to imagine me putting enthesis into it! :eek: ) Thanks for your time Tom Von Clarkenstein Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bumab Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 Actually, the mispelling of infinite is more annoying then the caps :friday: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C1ay Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 Actually, the mispelling of infinite is more annoying then the caps ;)I agree, is that better ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bumab Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 Thanks, I can read easy now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maddog Posted May 17, 2005 Report Share Posted May 17, 2005 How possile is it that the universe is [edit]infinitely[/edit] big... BOGGLED! well... just wondering what other learned people think...!?Let's see... Count out the integers starting at 1 onward at the rate of one per second. So how longwill it take ? If you figure that out, then you will know how BIG is Big for the Universe ![Hint:] Since you will likely be counting at your deathbed no matter how old you are now nor how long you will live. In that elapsed time you will have only traversed an infinitely small portion of the distance to infinity. maddog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C1ay Posted May 17, 2005 Report Share Posted May 17, 2005 How possile is it that the universe is infinatly big...Here's some number sets to give you an idea of infinite infinities. Begin with the series 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6....As the denominator goes to infinity you have an infinite set between 0 and 1/2 on the number line. Increment the numerator and count 2/3, 2/4, 2/5, 2/6, 2/7....As the denominator goes to infinity you have an infinite set between 0 and 2/3 on the number line. Increment the numerator and count 3/4, 3/5, 3/6, 3/7, 3/8....As the denominator goes to infinity you have an infinite set between 0 and 3/4 on the number line. Continue incrementing the numerator n and start each series n/(n+1) and you will have an infinite set of infinite sets that lie between 0 and 1 on the number line. You will actaully never even reach 1 and you will skip over all of the irrational numbers that cannot be represented by the ration of two integers. Now can you imagine an infinite set of infinite sets of infinite sets? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niviene Posted May 17, 2005 Report Share Posted May 17, 2005 So what are the boundrys of space?How sure are you that the universe is finate? ;) is there any chance that the universe is INFINATE!? ;) In theory if the universe was INFINATE it covers all possiblities right? Well would that cover things like the universe not being Infinate... and there being nothing... just a big nothing? Its a possibility and it is INFINATE (I am not trying to annoy people with the caps on infinate... I just want you to imagine me putting enthesis into it! ;) ) Thanks for your time Tom Von Clarkenstein I think what you are looking for is an easier explanation to this. You want to know if it's possible that the universe repeats itself and that alternate "us"es exist with slight differences. It is always possible that something like that exists - Futurama Style! - perhaps not the way you are thinking of it, but in some manner... but it's not probable. When I was your age I sat around with my friends and wondered the same things. Consider things like this: If Stephen Hawking can believe that Black Holes might lead to a parallel universe for so long and then change his mind after 30 years, that means that even the most brilliant minds simply don't know for sure and can only guess based on what info they have so far. You should allow yourself to keep having fun thinking about the possibilities... those are truly infinite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qfwfq Posted May 17, 2005 Report Share Posted May 17, 2005 Tom, according to the so-called Standard Model in cosmology, the universe would be finite but unbounded. If that's hard to understand think of the surface of a sphere and imagine that the radial direction did not exist. You can travel round and round the Earth without reaching any boundaries. Now let's pretend that the same goes for vertical directions too. It isn't easy at first to imagine this for all three dimensions, it takes a bit of transcendental meditation. ;) The effect I was going for here was the "imagine the biggest thing you can: no matter what, infinite is always bigger than that." Colloquial, in accurate, but it starts to convey the mental breakthrough you need to get "infinite."Inaccurate? Actually, it's the brunt of what's behind the definitions, both of infinite cardinality and in limits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quantum quack Posted May 17, 2005 Report Share Posted May 17, 2005 do the words "infinitely finite" have any meaning? ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paultrr Posted May 17, 2005 Report Share Posted May 17, 2005 do the words "infinitely finite" have any meaning? ;) König's infinity lemma: if G is a connected graph with infinitely many vertices such that every vertex has finite degree (= number of immediately adjacent vertices), then every vertex of G is part of an infinitely long simple path. Might be one such example. As far as vertices go the whole is Infinite. But each individual vertex is finite. Thus, both exist in one. However, in a strict sence of the word it has no meaning. As mentioned the universe is not general seen as infinite. Its finite and unbounded versus a finite universe that has a boundary. An interesting note is that using the CMB data we have at present there are no repeating patterns found in the universe at large. That exact data was utilized to eliminate a closed universe where a boundary would actually exist, at least within observable limits. However, the same data has also given rise to some suggestions on the actual size of the universe which in most cases is seen as vastly larger than what we actually can view. In this case the concept of a finite and unbounded universe is rather born out by the data we have at present. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quantum quack Posted May 17, 2005 Report Share Posted May 17, 2005 just an interesting thought to add,if we take 1000 two dimensional planes and stack them on top of each other how thick is the plane.Or put it this way:How many 2 dimensional planes exist in a a volume of 1 inch thickness? OK , the answer is obviously infinite in number. so if we take a ray of light and attempt to measure every zero duration event location how many locations are there in any given length of time.....same answer....infinite. [ assuming we do not subscibe to planks minimum measurements.....] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DigitaLMasteR_Alex Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 I will first go back to the "How possible is it that the universe is infinitely big", basically it is incredibly wide and it's getting wider and wider, but I don't think that it's infinite, The universe takes the shape of an oval, that means that there should be some other universes beyond our universes. About the infinite issue, when we say infinite we are talking about an undefined value and it ca be categorized in tow categories, countable and uncountable, and you can not run logical operations on infinity the same way you do with finite numbers, I mean the summation of infinites is also another infinity, infinite values may also converge to some value due to the equation that represent it, infinity concept is annoying because humans are used to deal with countable limited things, but still infinity had solved too many mathematical problems that would never have been solved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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