Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum What is the latest consensus

Of the Scientific establishment.

Is the Universe Infinite in nature? Or is it finite in nature?

1) to answer this would demand the ability of a god. (notice the small g)

2)we cant know if its physically finite until we find the edge. we cant know if its temporally finite unless we can defined time beyond the boundaries of what we know.

3) we will be able to fully defined the universe only when we fully understand the universe. until then the question cant be accurately answered. we dont even know if there are more dimensions than we already know of.

Turak:

You expect too much.

Science does not even know the size of our Solar System or what may be found at the farthest edge.
jjw

Turak asks:
"Is the Universe Infinite in nature? Or is it finite in nature?"

We do not know. It is, however, possible, to have infinite complexity in finite space. So the question may be meaningless in the sense that it is meaningless to ask who would I be if I'd been born to different parents.

That is not logical. It is mathematically impossible for any finite thing to have an infinite number of things inside it. That would be like trying to stuff an elephant into a single seed of grain. Or tying to stuff an infinite number of seeds into one seed.

You cannot have an infinite Universe that is finite.

You cannot have a finite Universe thatis Infinite'

PERIOD.

The Universe is either finite, or Infinite.

What surprises me is that you are not even interested in the question, When it is the most crucial question of all.

why is the question critical. it will take many billions of years before it matters if the univere is finite or not.

heres is an example of how it is so varible.

a monkey approaches a banana tree. lets say there are 4 ways he can get to the bananas. there are 4 variations of how he can get to them. now, when hes there, he has a choise of a couple dosen bananas. now he picks one and then has to decide where to eat it. lets say he has 5 choises. In this one small senerio there are 240 possible outcomes. most of these will effect the future in no way, but there might be. say one of the paths he takes is bad and he falls and breaks his neck. or he picks a banana that has a virus in it. it kills him. the banana might have gone bad and that virus disappeared from the earth, but now its in the monkey population. or one of the spots he choises to each might have a snake hiding there.

no difference to the future right. now what if that monkey had was the first to have a mutation that would eventually lead to humanity. or perhaps a variation in humans. say one that causes some humans to have blue hair. he dies and no human every has blue hair. at least not naturally.

I don't know if that's neccaceraly true. I'm no mathametician, but there are infinite series that have finite sums. The solution to Zeno's paradox is good example (Geometric Series). The square root of two is also an infinite sum.

Is that what Stephan Hawking's Book talks about?

Turak wrote:
"That is not logical. It is mathematically impossible for any finite thing to have an infinite number of things inside it."

Didn't your mother tell you that the problem with opening your mouth is that it often removes all doubt?

"Infinite complexity in finite space" is just another way of saying 'fractal'. Very logical and pure mathematics.

For those interested in actual science and education: http://www.gpc.edu/~mnunes/COMPLEX/LIMITS.HTM
and also look up mandelbrot sets, julia sets, quaternion julia sets, and koch snowflake at google.com.

Turak I really don't know what middle school you attend but you are in way over your head trying to bluff your way here. Unless you are striving for public embarrasement you might want to reconsider your modus operandi.

I have to point out that the universe need not have an edge in order to be finite.

Consider the surface of the earth, I think you'll agree it is finite in area, and yet it has no edge.

Simply upscale from a two dimensional surface curved into a third dimension to a three dimensional volume curved into a fourth and voila! Finite yet unbounded space.

Though if one looked at even a small portion of the earth's surface, say a beach, and asked how long the beach is, the fractal nature of the beach would render its length to be infinite.

This is the interface where the English langjuage and the language of Mathematics breaks down.

actually the earth has an edge. its called space.

Well you just keep walking and let me know when you get there.

I can only assume that the words 'non-Euclidean' mean nothing to you.

Its weird to think that this thing has an infinite length. I had to do the math to convince myself.



plus.maths.org

dehammer wrote:
"actually the earth has an edge. its called space."

Really? Can you touch it? Measure its location? Take a photograph of it? Perhaps write your name on it?

Think harder.

TwoSheds wrote:
"Its weird to think that this thing has an infinite length. I had to do the math to convince myself."

That's why I said English and mathematics are not the same language. The length of a beach changes increases as the length of the measuring device is made smaller and smaller.

This may well be a dumb question, but what happens when the measuring device reaches the Planck length?

Well measuring this purely mathmatical fractal, say after every iteration your measuring device is the length of the shortest line. You start with one line


After the first iteration, the shortest line is L/3 and there are 4 of them so the total length is 4/3*L

Generalizing now there are 4^n lines each of length L/(3^n). n is the number of iterations. below is n=2.


As you do each iteration the length of each segment gets smaller, but the total length of all of them combined is greater. If you do an infinite number of iterations then the length approaches infinite. Assuming the starting length is 1 meter, the number of iterations you would have to do for the lengths of each segment to reach the planck length would be about 73.


So our physical limit can never get smaller than the planck length. At that point the total length will be about 1.3 billion meters[L*(4/3)^n]. Keep in mind that's with L=1meter to start with, and just with this snowflake thing called a Von Koch island.

This website has some info on fractals and some cool pictures that were created using fractals.
plus.maths.org

Sure, as soon a I can learn to walk on air, Ill show you the edge. Just because you cant walk to it does not mean it does not exist. I cant hold a photon, but that does not mean the photon does not exist. I cant touch a magnetic field, but that does not render it nonexistent.

edit:nice find, TwoSheds.

Can you personally touch the moon? Can you measure the location of a photon? Can you photograph a magnetic field? Perhaps you can write your name on the wind?

I would also refer you to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith who's song "Living on the Edge" seems to suggest that Tyler may have discovered the edge along with the rest of the members of Aerosmith. haha sorry I couldn't help myself.