I'm not sure if I understand the word "infinity"

a reply to: deadlyhope

in·fin·i·ty

in·fin·i·ty [in fínnətee]
(plural in·fin·i·ties)
n
1. something without limits: limitless time, space, or distance
Beyond the Earth lay infinity.

2. something too great to count: an amount or number so great that it cannot be counted
an infinity of stars

3. state of being infinite: the state or quality of being infinite
4. mathematics concept of being always unlimited: the concept of being unlimited by always being larger than any imposed value or boundary. For some purposes this may be considered as being the same as one divided by zero.
5. mathematics geometric point at infinite distance: a part of a geometric figure situated an infinite distance from the observer, e.g. the hypothetical point at which parallel lines meet in Euclidean geometry
6. optics infinitely distant point: a point sufficiently far from a lens or mirror that the light emitted from it falls in parallel rays on the surface


[14th century. < French infinité < Latin infinitus (see infinite)]
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Would the symbol work any better?



How about the number 8?

a reply to: spy66

I've always preferred Achilles' race with the tortoise. The tortoise gets a head start, so when Achilles catches up to where it started, it will have moved forward a little bit. When Achilles reaches that spot, the tortoise will have moved on. No matter how fast Achilles runs, the tortoise will move before Achilles can catch up to where it was.

Zeno's paradoxes don't really pose a problem once you realize infinities can have a beginning and an end though. For example: look at the koch curve. You can pick any two points on it and cut a section from it. It will have a beginning and an end, but the distance between will be infinite.

Ah, the number eight. It's alright if you live on the black line, Infinity. But enclosed in that figure are two seperate worlds and the there is the outside world. Even scientists cannot give you closure on the subject of infinity as infinity is a concept that humans try to put distancies and fugures to. It don't and cannot work.
Infinity is just a word that humans came up with to assuage the brain. Don't you agree'
Then sit and really think about it, not just take it at face value or just flip it off, in your mind you travel off this planet in a straight line and travel. Then TRY to imagine that nothing will stop your progress, Nothing!
After you have thought for a long time try and put the concept into words. You can't (if you can you are conceited) as the greatest scientists and philosophers in the known world couldn't do it.
That's why the word infinity was born.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Infinity only work in theory and math but not in reality. While in math you can divide something in half forever but in reality it doesn't work that way. There is a limit called the Planck length that we cannot go beyond. According to Big Bang theory there is even a start to time and space which means those would not be infinite either.

There is a more recent cosmological theory saying that the universe is in fact infinite but it is also a 2D plane. That's a little more confusing to understand but I suppose that would allow for infinity. However, other than in math and concepts infinity doesn't seem to exist in "real" terms. We can understand it though conceptually with things like fractals and math.

a reply to: mOjOm

Don't infinities show up in the event horizon according to relativity?

originally posted by: VP740

Don't infinities show up in the event horizon according to relativity?

Can you explain in more detail what you mean???

a reply to: mOjOm

Gravity slows time. The passage of time outside the event horizon is supposed to be infinite relative to the time at the event horizon. Also, the change in gravity approaching the event horizon becomes so strong it pulls the object entering apart. As an example if you jumped in to one your feet would be in a stronger gravitational pull than your head. The pull would become so strong it would rip you apart, but it wouldn't end there. Each piece would go through the same thing as it approached, resulting in infinite shredding.

I haven't studied this formally, but that's what I've read.

a reply to: deadlyhope

** infinity just means "A huge or inversely small number that we havent worked out yet, so we give it the Lemniscate symbol" THATS ALL. everything in the universes of matter and thought is THREE dimensional. you can sub-divide in THREES only, due to the Mechanism of Human Cognition. if someone proposes (say) an eleven "dimensional" universe, they have mistakenly changed the definition to Parameters somewhere. only ONE single Final Mystery has TWO dimensions - the End of the Causal Chain, because you can never get Past >IT< to "know" the other side. that is the "nothing" out of which Everything first came.
dont waste your brains with Abstract Imaginations that x^^10 trillion^^10 trillion "exists" anywhere, you CANNOT "know" that, you are just raving stick with Possibilities that correspond with Reality....

some believe the universe is a bubble made by the big bang.
I believe that the universe is just like a Very big super nova.
think of trillions of years in the future
the galaxy will merge with at lest one we know of.
"The Andromeda–Milky Way collision is a galactic collision predicted to occur in about 4 billion years"
then may be one day it will collapse on its self and make a super black hole.
it would big a VERY big expulsion. the mater in it becomes some thing more!
it evolves up the periodic table.

but out side of are part of the universe. are flower!
is a LOT of empty space. and more flowers.
the empty space has NO end it is infinity in all directions.
if you could travel at zillion times the speed of light with out ever stooping
and you never ever die. then you still would Never get even a part way into infinity.
as infinity has no end.

even the light from a super nova would die, run out of energy.
the single photons would stop.
and in and almost endless time gravity from its home universe would draw it back.
that is unless it past over half way to the next universe.

a may fly lives for 24 hours. a dog lives for 15 years.
a human lives for about 80 to 120 years. old trees live for 4500 years.
but some trees live as long as they can.
450,000 is the oldest for the Yew tree. Methuselah tree is supposed to not die.

a star/sun lasts about 10 billion years. we dont know how long a galaxy last.
and then there is the milky-way. zillions of years maybe?
but I think it recycles and does it all over again. evolving.

Um! I thing you have it backwards.
gravity makes time run faster.
they put two atomic clock one in space and one on earth.
the one in space was slow.
think of a pendulum clock. more gravity more Pull on the pendulum.
it speeds up atoms to!

originally posted by: VP740
a reply to: mOjOm

Gravity slows time. The passage of time outside the event horizon is supposed to be infinite relative to the time at the event horizon. Also, the change in gravity approaching the event horizon becomes so strong it pulls the object entering apart. As an example if you jumped in to one your feet would be in a stronger gravitational pull than your head. The pull would become so strong it would rip you apart, but it wouldn't end there. Each piece would go through the same thing as it approached, resulting in infinite shredding.

I haven't studied this formally, but that's what I've read.

a reply to: buddha

Time runs slower in the presence of gravity.

Why would the big bang theory also entail the theory that time and space started existing at some point? I'm slightly confused, there. Something from nothing whatsoever is much crazier than any religion I've ever heard. But that's just in my mind, of course. All of us being human, not one of us is going to have all the truth about everything.

a reply to: buddha

Earth has a weak gravitational field, so it doesn't effect time much. The clock in orbit ran slower because it was moving much faster.

a reply to: deadlyhope

The big bang theory came from the assumption that everything started at one point. We can tell from red shift that everything is moving away. If it'd been moving for an infinite time nothing would be near us, and our sun would have burned out an infinite time ago. So it must have all been closer at one point. We can calculate the age of the universe running calculations based on what we see, along with some assumptions based on reason.

I think there are some theories to explain what caused the big bang. For instance: Hawking thought time itself loops like the ant's string. The end when everything gets pulled back into one big black-hole marks the beginning of our big bang.

Ordinary math and geometry are bad at representing infinity -- and reality in general. You start with a single point in an infinity of unbounded space:

.

Okay, so how many points are there left to choose from in the infinite space? Well, it turns out that it's still infinite. So infinity minus one is still infinity. In fact, no matter how many points you designate and therefore subtract from infinity, there will always be infinitely more available points to choose. For another example, imagine a line drawn through that point:

__________________________ . ______________________________

The line by itself has an infinite number of points on it. But if you designate a point in it, what you're essentially doing is splitting it in half. No matter where you put the point, it will always be in the middle. How many points are there on either side of the middle point? An infinite number in both directions. So 1/2 of infinity is the same as 2x infinity. And we haven't even started talking about the infinities that are on either side of the line.

It might be more useful to talk about direction (←↓↑→) rather than number. Toward or away from a point or line. Above or below. Multiple dimensions. That might be more like reality, but it's not something easy for us to comprehend.

a reply to: ladyinwaiting

:p is this meant to be an allegory?

If you don’t understand infinity, deadlyhope, then you have a lot of distinguished company.

The concept of infinity is an abstraction that has relevance in numerous fields/branches of mathematics and physics. It’s the boundless, unlimited extreme our logic allows. However, in our real life, pragmatic experience it’s nothing we can observe or experience in any tangible sense. It’s a concept only, and one that physicists prefer to not deal with. The concept of infinity, like the concept of zero, is incomprehensible, and yet for completeness our logic demands it.

Infinity, zero and quantum theory: we use these concepts all the time, and yet there’s not a soul on this Earth who can honestly say they understand them. They just are. At least for now...

a reply to: VP740

I've heard that, but that's not everything from nothing, that's everything from a concrete point of everything.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Simple answer? You don't need to understand infinity.

You're finite!