Infinite

[Cpt. Drill]

How possile is it that the universe is infinatly big...

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!? 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...!?

Thankyou for your time

Tom Von Clarkenstein

[Buffy]

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

[bumab]

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."

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by bumab

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

[UncleAl]

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.

[Cpt. Drill]

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

[bumab]

Actually, the mispelling of infinite is more annoying then the caps

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by bumab

Actually, the mispelling of infinite is more annoying then the caps

I agree, is that better

[bumab]

Thanks, I can read easy now...

[maddog]

Originally Posted by Cpt. Drill

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 long
will 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