Do you believe in physcial infinity? *Question Rephrased*

[Tigra00]

 

I don't see any reason not to believe in it. My brain can't comprehend the thought of the universe being infinite. Like, I get this strange surge and suddenly I have to rethink the question, and so on until I get a headache. It's just so baffling. Then, if I can convince myself that there is an end to the universe, my brain kills itself yet again with the idea that whatever is beyond the universe must be infinite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I think time must be infinite in the past. Science says everything was created at the big bang, but there must have been something before that, and a time for it to have all been just sitting there in nothingness, and that time must go infinite years in the past, just as time will go on for infinite years in the future. Time never began, and time will never end, as I see it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm, what if we're caught in a cycle?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right now, we are post-bang. What if the Big Crunch arrives, gathering up all the matter that had once been expelled?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then blowing up again? So maybe our universe has no beginning, nor end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even if thats a really hard concept to grasp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That would be awesome if it crunched and banged (again). If I'm not mistaken, as it stand now, billions of years from now, all the stars will be dead and life will not be supportable...Anywhere. In 4.5 billion years, our Sun will be dead (we'll be gone long before that thanks to the heat from it expanding and engulfing us, if we last that long...) and several billions of years after that, you'd think they'd all be dead...I mean, new stars are created, but they'll all eventually die out and then there is like, nothing but gas and stuff...As far as I know of, that gas left over can't just make another star because the reason stars go boom boom in the first place is because they run out of the gases they need (helium and hydrogen) for nuclear fushion or whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Shrug*

[indy500fan]

I've been saying the Universe will crunch and bang infinitly in every topic dealing like this. I passed on saying it in this topic because I wanted to see if anyone listened :P . Apperantly someone did, or the theory is more widespread than I thought.

[Ragen]

I've been saying the Universe will crunch and bang infinitly in every topic dealing like this. I passed on saying it in this topic because I wanted to see if anyone listened :P . Apperantly someone did, or the theory is more widespread than I thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That theory is pretty widespread I think. Well I've heard it anyway.

[assassin_696]

 

The universe must clearly have had a beginning since we measure it in terms of time, so you must be able to rewind back to the beginning of time, you can't have infinite regress within our universe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dont see why not.

 

 

 

and using the superstring theory the 10th dimension would be Infinite, or all possibilities in all possible times in all possible places/universes, in all dimmensions (there are not infinite dimmesions, you can not go beyond infinity/all possible pleces/times/continums.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why can't you have infinite regress? Well if you want to use the laws of string theory to describe our universe, then our knowledge of the universe shows us that time itself is relative, but has must have a beginning. Basically for me the concept of infinite regress is too hard to accept, and all the evidence i've seen points towards the fact that it's impossible. There must be a termination somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Superstring theory is not proven, as much as I believe in it in principle you're using an outdated version. M-theory (a unification of the five different versions of string theory) has 11 dimensions. I don't understand them fully, but basically you described the 10th dimension as all possible places, probabilites at all times etc. etc. However, this by definition is not infinity. All of the things you described are finite, and contained within that 10th dimension, so what lies outside of it?

[indy500fan]

 

I've been saying the Universe will crunch and bang infinitly in every topic dealing like this. I passed on saying it in this topic because I wanted to see if anyone listened :P . Apperantly someone did, or the theory is more widespread than I thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That theory is pretty widespread I think. Well I've heard it anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I first started posting about it I thought it was a common belief among everybody who thought there was a Big Bang. It seemed the only logical explination, an infinite number of Big Bangs and Big Crunches. But no one ever seemed to have hear of it before. In all the discussions I would bring it up, every seemed like that was the first time they heard of it.

[cyco]

You just did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You admit it has an edge, at which you get teleported to the other side. That means there must be something outside that edge, which you get teleported away from before you reach. If not, then the universe is infinite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is either finite and has something outside, or infinite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If it had something outside of my made up teleportation move, wouldn't that make it infinite? Maybe not if you didn't call it Space lol.

[Anesthesia]

That's precisely my point... Either way it is infinite.

[cyco]

That's precisely my point... Either way it is infinite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah thats true.. If there was nothing there it would be infinite nothing if it was a brick wall it would be a really big infinite brick wall.

[Death_By_Pod]

I've been saying the Universe will crunch and bang infinitly in every topic dealing like this. I passed on saying it in this topic because I wanted to see if anyone listened :P . Apperantly someone did, or the theory is more widespread than I thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Except that scenario wouldn't make sense since the universe is accelerating outwards. In a Bang-Crunch scenario: the universe would bang, expansion would decelerate outwards, stop and then start to accelerate inwards. It doesn't at any time accelerate outwards. There would probably be a way to account for the acceleration but so far it seems like a dead end.

[VOV]

This quote, taken from Stephen King's The Dark Tower, is one of my favourite literary quotes of all time and suits this thread perfectly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box abd cover it with wet weeds to die?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Or one might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become league, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through the shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things - as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebula, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our universe and our own lives, turning everthing yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it's already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Think how small such a concept of things make us, gunslinger! If a God watches over it all, does He actually mete out justice for such a race of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see... what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds by universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Size, gunslinger... size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"You dare not."

[pro28]

This quote, taken from Stephen King's The Dark Tower, is one of my favourite literary quotes of all time and suits this thread perfectly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box abd cover it with wet weeds to die?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Or one might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become league, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through the shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things - as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebula, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our universe and our own lives, turning everthing yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it's already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Think how small such a concept of things make us, gunslinger! If a God watches over it all, does He actually mete out justice for such a race of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see... what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds by universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Size, gunslinger... size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"You dare not."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The atoms in the pencial aren't held together by gravity, they are held together by strong/weak forces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, I just missed the entire point of that passage; but hey, Stephen King doesn't know science.

[VOV]

The atoms in the pencial aren't held together by gravity, they are held together by strong/weak forces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, I just missed the entire point of that passage; but hey, Stephen King doesn't know science.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair, the passage was published in 1982. I don't know where we scientists were in terms of sub-atomic understanding at the time but King may not have had access to the best resources available.

[Cloaked_Shadow]

I personally liked that passage alot...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It makes you think of all the unknowns in our universe.

[bull912000]

Lets see...

 

 

 

If you wanted infinity number of objects, you would need infinity atoms. Unless there is in infinately large storage place somewhere in the universe, there is not infinity atoms. With the law of conservation of mass, you can't create atoms, so were stuck with only every atom we have now. No infinity Objects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Space is nothin, and we have plenty of that just outside our universe. I don't see how anything could make the end of the universe the end of existance, so I believe in infinity space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Numbers: Well, you can figure that out yourself. Leme get you started:

 

 

 

1,2,3,4,5...

[The Dark Lord]

Depends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Numbers are infinite.

 

 

 

Space is not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No one knows if the universe is infinite or finite. No one can really find out because travelling faster than the speed of light (which is not even possible), you would never make it to the "other" end of the universe, so you cannot even know if it is infinite or finite.

[kelem_ryu]

The thought that the universe is finite makes me feel claustrophobic........

[Guest XplsvBam]

If there wasn't physical infinity there wouldn't be space. Tell me a place where there is no space? exactly. There is always space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a question. If space was growing wouldn't there be more space? But if outside the universe there isn't space then where is this space coming from? Let's pretend that your room is the universe, can your room grow? Only by taking up other space in your house. It can't grow without taking more space. So even if the universe was growing then it would be taking space from out side of the universe proving physical infinity.

[BlueLancer]

If there wasn't physical infinity there wouldn't be space. Tell me a place where there is no space? exactly. There is always space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a question. If space was growing wouldn't there be more space? But if outside the universe there isn't space then where is this space coming from? Let's pretend that your room is the universe, can your room grow? Only by taking up other space in your house. It can't grow without taking more space. So even if the universe was growing then it would be taking space from out side of the universe proving physical infinity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this sense, I couldn't agree more with you. The universe can't be finite. On the other hand, material infinity within our own world is obviously impossible.