Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Retiring Infinity from science

please stop use mathematica

You stoped and what

Universe has got any problem that You are not write 2+2 ???


please push mass m on table in Your room
the universe will recognize that You are trying change something

exist huge different between teretical physics

and Engineer

Engineer must observe and use ( my boss not ask me what I imagimagine but how much it cost and what is the deadline and how it works )

the best way is 50% /50 %

Why I started my tests / why Einstein started

why people on this forum not like read my posts

( my inspiration was simply - one day I made few picture of my daughter - Einstein inspiration - please look here is me my head and I my imagination will tell you how work the universe

what a f.... abracadabra matematica + marketing )

There are two conceived flavours of eternity being mentioned: (i) timelessness, (ii) endless time. Maybe both apply to reality. I don't see a sound philosophical/logical reason to rule out either. Much of the discussion seems to arise from personal preference and conceptualization issues.

“endless time”. This is using “eternity” as an approximation for a large number, which runs parallel to the discussion we were having about infinity. If you accept it as an approximation, that seems ok.

If you think it’s not an approximation it reopens the same questions.

Is infinity a large number – is eternity a large number of seconds?

Can you have an infinite number of finite objects – can you have an infinite amount of time?

Let's confirm that we are referring to the same thing. I see 'endless time' meaning that time had no beginning, stretching into an eternal past. Are you saying that such a quantity of seconds therein is an approximation for a large number?

My concept of eternity is as I stated above. Not merely a large number of seconds.

If space is finite, then the number of objects cannot be infinite. On the other hand, if space is infinite then there is no limit to the number of particles that may occupy it. I don't know if you can have an infinite amount of time, but it seems to be a reasonable concept.

Im not replying to any particular person , but I would like
to suggest that we agree that we dont understand infinity
enough to retire it.

we need to get to know it , before we can retire it.

perhaps when we understand infinity we may be capable of
a decision.

That seems an admirable suggestion, Paul, do you have any suggestions as to where we might start?

That's absolutely right, Rede, but only at a superficial level. For example, 100 objects is a finite number of objects, you can, in principle, keep adding groups of 100, but the number will never become infinite. Why? The usual answer is that you would need infinite time, which you do not have. However, even that answer is superficial.

A deeper answer is that however much adding you do (even if you had eternity in which to do it) you would always have a number, and infinity is not a number.

LOL , lets consider what we believe it to be perhaps.

we know its a measurement , so if we think about it as we would
a yard stick that never has an end or or a clock that never can stop ticking away the seconds then perhaps that
might help some of us to visualize it or get to know it better.

perhaps

But you can place an infinite number of objects in an infinite space. Of if you want to talk about time you can have an infinite number of finite moments in an infinite time. So if the universe is infinite in either space or time then there is no problem with having either a finite or an infinite number of things in it. So what you say is quite true, but there is still the question of whether or not the universe is infinite. And that we don't know.

I do know that I personally have a problem conceiving of the universe having a real beginning or end. I just can't quite wrap my head around the idea of an absolute nothing.

Bill Gill

On the contrary, that is what it is not.
How would you measure it?

A yard stick is a finite object; how many yards in infinity?
You might say: "an infinite number, but that's a semantic cop-out. Infinity is not a number.

The same applies to seconds.

Far from helping us to understand infinity, it is our insistence on trying to force it into a mould of finite dimensions that leads to confusion.

I thought science was about things that could be tested.

Do you know of an experiment that could prove either of your statements?

You will probably say I've just shot myself in the foot, because it is not possible to prove the converse, but that's another line of discussion.

I agree with your previous statement Bill S but this one has got me?

Any finite object number should have an easy proof or is this back to the chaotic grand universe that we just happen to live in a (edit: used the "s" word .. arg) "logical" world and any moment the chaotic universe is going to break thru and mess it all up so we can't believe anything logical.

If you believe our universe is logical it is easy to prove at a layman macro object level and for science if you use Schrodinger or Dirac equations you can prove it for any two particles that they can't be in the same space at the same time. One of the weird things about BEC's is they break this rule and it was predicted to happen from the formula's a long before it was observed.

However Bill S you seem to enjoy weird so I am going to give you weird in a suggestion of John Archibald Wheeler ... enjoy
http://io9.com/5876966/what-if-every-electron-in-the-universe-was-all-the-same-exact-particle

infinity is a measurement.

it is not a particular measurement as in a finite measurement
ie , a meter , a yard.

The English word infinity derives from Latin infinitas, which can be translated as "unboundedness", itself calqued from the Greek word apeiros, meaning "endless".

In mathematics, "infinity" is often treated as if it were a number (i.e., it counts or measures things: "an infinite number of terms")

the word infinity is defined as a measurement.
the word infinity is all that we have to work with.

endless is a measurement.
infinite is a measurement.

to say that something has a measurement of 1000km is a measurement.
and
to say that something is an infinite number of kilometers is
a measurement.

Im not saying that we know what that measurement is.
if we did , we wouldnt be having this discussion.


its just a word that we use to describe such a situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity

Rarely do I ever agree with you Paul but in this case I do completely, its a word and concept nothing more.

Any "actual measurement" involving infinity at best is an approximation and at worst it is completely undefined.

Another Newton post to delete Rose .. he will get the message eventually.

He has so much spam I don't think he has even worked out you have started deleting them

I am trying to keep up. If he would only stick to his threads, I wouldn't mind so much. This tactic of splatter-casting has got to stop.

Agreed, but unless we can have some degree of understanding of what our words mean, then language becomes worthless, discussion pointless and the "situation" we are trying to describe remains undescribed.

In the same way that in science the word “nothing” has evolved to a point where it has become necessary to use “absolute nothing” where once “nothing” would have sufficed; so we have, perhaps reached a point where we have to use “absolutely infinite” to differentiate between the scientific usage of infinity and that which is truly infinite.

Of course, one can point imperiously to the Greek or Latin origins of our words, but English is a living, developing language. Modern usage is much more relevant to scientific discussion.



It has been pointed out elsewhere that, etymologically, infinite = endless; so something can have a beginning, but as long as it never ends, it is infinite.

A few moments thought reveals the absurdity of this. Beginning and end are perspective dependent. Turn around and the beginning becomes the end.

This also argues that something finite can become infinite, which is completely illogical.



I am not going to get into the etymology of “measurement”, but to say that an infinite number of anything is a measurement is clearly wrong, because you could never use it to determine the dimensions or quantity of anything. Nor could you ever measure its extent.

Should we try to establish some points on which we agree, so as to avoid constantly being at cross purposes?

Some people have already agreed that infinity is not a number. It may not be universally accepted, so can I ask if anyone disagrees with the statement:

Infinity is not a number.

That is garbage even in layman terms "nothing" has never meant there is literally nothing including the universe

The usual historical dictionary definition is "nothing denotes things lacking importance, interest, value, relevance, or significance". It has been extended to "not anything" but it still had some logic that it was the absence of something expected.

If you go to the works of William Shakespeare and he has "Much Ado About Nothing" he isn't talking about the universe ending is he.

The need for absolute in the front is because you have butchered the word meaning and if I was another person on the forum I would be arguing that you have to stop using it like that because it offends me.

The word history of nothing is said to be from nan "not one" (see none) + þing "thing." first recorded in 1631 and that doesn't say the universe and everything ends there does it, it says lack of one thing. As Paul points out infinity has always had it's current use.

So don't blame the problem with nothing on science it is you layman that have butchered the word and it's meaning, we use absolute to try and clarify what you are talking about. In science we still use nothing in it's normal English sense like

"I tested for radioactive elements and found nothing"

The sentence doesn't say I found the end of the universe when I did the test