Infinite vs. Finite Universe

To you, is the Universe infinite or finite? You can read academic papers on either side by simply searching google. I'm looking for more thoughtful, genuine responses than "Well this PhD says the universe is an infinite torus.". No.

In my opinion the Universe has to be infinite. How could you possibly reach a surface that was just the end of "the Universe"? Hypothetically, even if we assume that the Universe is finite and all of its volume is contained neatly within a sphere, what is surrounding the sphere that is our finite universe? Would electromagnetic waves cease to be transmitted through empty space outside of the known Universe volume in a finite universe scenario? Is nothingness a thing?

a reply to: Imhotepic

Science or God, I choose God and the universe is infinite as is his ability to create and change it. Even science has to admit something created this thing called life.

It's finite in an infinite loop. Without the finite you wouldn't create the infinite.

Something had to create an entire nothing.

a reply to: revalationsaint

That thing is called chemical reactions.

a reply to: luciferslight

Infinite + 1

Changes everything, no?

Not making a quick shotgun jab.

I'm being serious here.

I think once we truly figure out "Dark Matter" the answer will reveal itself to us.

Lets say in the World of Warcraft - is that a finite universe or an infinite universe? Is it even a universe?

You stand in that universe and you may think it may go on forever but it is not even a 'real' universe, and it is finite.

a reply to: nOraKat

You're blowing my mind.

originally posted by: SLAYER69
a reply to: luciferslight

Infinite + 1

Changes everything, no?

Not making a quick shotgun jab.

I'm being serious here.

I think once we truly figure out "Dark Matter" the answer will reveal itself to us.

They said the same thing about the ether.

i actually see this as a personal interpretation of what the universe is

if you see the universe as the body which holds all of the known/local galaxies etc..., then it is finite

if you view the universe as all there is/was/will be to come, then it is infinite

this multiverse would/does include other universes in relative time space and dimensional as well

a reply to: Imhotepic

Indeed.. you could go on.. and the mind explodes..

If there was a end "wall" whats behind that.. and whats behind the next and the next and the next..
And if its a sphere whats behind the sphere and whats behind that and that and that and that..
and tha BUAmmbmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!

By all means of deffinition our universe is a black hole, finite in size at any given moment, but constantly expanding without releasing any physical matter. You know whats outside of the black hole our universe is contained in?
Another universe.
Infinite in fractal nature, infinitely large, infinitely small.

a reply to: Vortiki

You contradicted yourself. You first state that our universe is a blackhole. Then you go on to say that our universe is IN a black hole. So just holes in holes in holes eh? Seems pretty simplistic. I'm not so sure I can get down with a theory like that, especially when it's presented as fact.

a reply to: Imhotepic
In one, are one. If blackholes contain universes i would just consider them universes, but i can understand you dont say a bottle of water is just water. My bad if i wasnt clear enough on my proposal that our universe is INSIDE a blackhole.
Its not unbelievable when you think about it, nothing escapes our universe, not even light(as far as ive ever known) yet it seems to expand from nothing.

Do blackholes not consume endless amounts of matter without ever giving it back? Then why would it seem farfetched that our universe is, infact, inside a blackhole?

Big bang? You mean collapsed dense matter that started consuming matter at an exponential rate? Works for me.

a reply to: Imhotepic


Ummm...infinite...with the caveat of infinite universes...represented infinitely...Possibly meaning that your both Hitler...and my Mother...

Or at least a vague similitude...sort of...




YouSir

a reply to: Imhotepic

Definitely finite. One of many.

originally posted by: Imhotepic
To you, is the Universe infinite or finite?

I know it sounds a little paradoxical, but I think it's both. It has an "edge" but only in the sense that it folds back in on itself. A point at which it no longer goes ========> THAT way, but instead starts to go ======== THAT way, but if you were traveling there, you wouldn't notice a change in "direction."

a reply to: Imhotepic
60 years ago when I was ten, my uncle showed me one of the first picture books that did the magnifying images from our perceptual level, out times 10 then out times 100 and out and out, and down by 10 and down by 100 etc. Sixty years ago and my little boy mind was blown.
So in the early sixties when we studied space in high school I was glued to the text book. Back then, though cosmologist were pretty certain that the big bang was the more reliable version of how this all came to be rather than the steady state theory of Fred Hoyle and friends had suggested in the late 50s, the big bang was still in it's early stages of belief by the lay public. Myself, I tended towards the steady state idea over the Big Bang, but as more and more information became available at my level of perusal, for me, the big bang won out. Since the seventies, I have read dozens of books on the evolving development of these theories. I"m no expert, just a layman like you.

However, now, for me, that is questionable again. During all those years between our ability to see 'out' into the universe farther and farther and now farther at all that stuff, I mean allllllll that stuff out there, the Big Bang is becoming more and more incomprehensible to me. Back then when we thought that it all came from the BB, we had no idea just how MUCH it all was. And even now we know that all that we can see still may only be a drop in the bucket of everything.

As you mention in your OP, these experts say this, and those experts say that. From this I understand that even though all these experts have all this information, and all the mathematics and all that knowledge, what they are really doing in the end is little more than you and I can do. Guessing.

So I have quit believing what the experts tell me about it all. If they all agreed, that would be one thing, but they don't so as I am as much a being of this existence as they, and am not unknowedgable about what we know and do not know, I feel free to make my own guesses, at least enough to satisfy my own sense of context in which to live. It's simple.
Existence is infinite. It is steady state, or as more recently proposed, a Quasi Steady State. This universe, the one into which we look out into with our telescopes is finite and maybe just one of any number of physically emerging bubbles in this otherwise infinite and otherwise barely conceivable existence.

a reply to: Imhotepic

According to the last in Cosmology the Universe is both Flat and Finite. However, this is our current universe that we live in and I think there is still the possibility of other Universes to exist besides this one. But ours is Finite not infinite. They even have the data to prove this too from observational evidence and measurements and probably some very complicated math that none of us would understand how to do.

originally posted by: mOjOm
a reply to: Imhotepic

According to the last in Cosmology the Universe is both Flat and Finite. However, this is our current universe that we live in and I think there is still the possibility of other Universes to exist besides this one. But ours is Finite not infinite. They even have the data to prove this too from observational evidence and measurements and probably some very complicated math that none of us would understand how to do.

Who is "they" and what "data" do "they" have that "proves" our universe is finite and flat?

a reply to: mOjOm

I disagree.