Don't forget, infinity is a crutch.

lets go smoke some melange behind that dumpster over there guys

Doesn't the concept of infinity make the concept of "unlikely" obsolete?

Regardless, my motto is: Don't fuck around with the infinite. Whatever we can learn, great, but infinity "ain't no joke."

so if action x happens an infinite amount of times then all of the infinity of our universe must be occupied in containing the infinite amount of matter involved in action x and so action c will have no space for it's matter. to be contained within an infinite universe the sum of all matter must be less then infinity.



Hindi philosophy came to a similar conclusion like this thousands of years ago. They reasoned that if a mountain was composed of an infinite number of parts, that it could be broken down into and infinite number of pieces and reconstructed to be of infinite size. Has more to do with particles then then universal sizes, but illustrates that inifnity is a powerful reasoning tool for these sorts of questions.

If the universe was infinite then would it also be reasonable to say that it contains and infinite amount of matter? If a space was infinitely large and contained in infinite amount of matter then wouldn't that space have to be completely occupied with matter; a 1:1 ratio of space to matter? Our universe's space to matter/energy ratio must be in the order of trillions (probably a lot lot more) to one. So would it be fair to say that the universe ends at the boundary between where matter/energy is present and where there is just vacuum?

Finite universe
Infinite Space
The Infinite is In the Finite, hence the term In-Finite.
Or the Absolute is within the relative.
Or all of existence is in all moments.
Or:

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."

The Infinite is In the Finite, hence the term In-Finite.


You never cease to entertain me Vanhalla.

So would it be fair to say that the universe ends at the boundary between where matter/energy is present and where there is just vacuum?

doesn't there need to be space for a vacuum to exist? and what about the vacuum that exist within our solar system, our solar system is definitely within our universe and yet there is "nothingness" there.

doesn't there need to be space for a vacuum to exist? and what about the vacuum that exist within our solar system, our solar system is definitely within our universe and yet there is "nothingness" there.

The vacuum of space could of been around before the big bang. Also the vacuum of space that we know about is not completely void of all energy or matter, there are always some atoms floating about and tons of photons. I am talking about an absolute vacuum of no matter nor any energy.

the universe is infinite for this reason:
if we could travel to the edge of the universe, hop out of the ship and throw a baseball, then the universe would be expanded, theoretically forever. the leading edge of the big bang is what we consider the boundaries of the universe, the shell of all existence.

the baseball is now the edge of the universe.

universe= baseball + huge atomic fireball of swirling galaxies 90 ft behind it.


right? or am i'm crazy? or both?


addendum:
the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. so the big crunch theory seems unreasonable.

Well unless you through that baseball at the speed of light it would not dictate the edge of the matter/energy universe.

The universe could also loop back on itself so going to the edge of one end would just bring you to the edge of the other end and would be infinite in the same sense that traveling around a circle is infinite.

^kinda like in pacman?

^kinda like in pacman?

exactly

the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. so the big crunch theory seems unreasonable.

Assuming that the speed of light is the fastest anything can travel within our universe the universe would cap its rate of expansion at the speed of light so it isn't plausible that the universe will expand at an accelerating rate.

On a side note, assuming that the furthest point containing matter is still our universe, would a beam of light without any (other) matter around it be considered "the universe"

and what about the vacuum that exist within our solar system, our solar system is definitely within our universe and yet there is "nothingness" there.

There actually is no vacuum in our universe - "vacuum" simply refers to the lowest energy state, which is still higher than "zero energy", which is why you get quacks talking about "zero-point energy"... they think they can harness the energy of the vacuum without taking into account that you must have a lower-energy system for energy to flow into, and creating a system with lower energy than the vacuum would result in a false-vacuum metastability event, meaning the universe would collapse. :-)

You're right, though, there has to be space for a vacuum to exist.

The universe could also loop back on itself so going to the edge of one end would just bring you to the edge of the other end and would be infinite in the same sense that traveling around a circle is infinite.

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

You'll like this. :-)

so if action x happens an infinite amount of times then all of the infinity of our universe must be occupied in containing the infinite amount of matter involved in action x and so action c will have no space for it's matter.

That is of course assuming that action x creates matter, which it doesn't, because matter is not created or destroyed under normal circumstances. The amount of matter in the universe right now is all the matter that's ever going to be in the universe.

We should be more worried abought keeping the matter rolling.
If the sun is here for a million more years, we should be preparing for a million years on what do do when the candle in the sky goes out. We should get in our space ships and find a sun that will last longer. We want to recycle this universe and keep the human race alive as long as possible.

If the sun is here for a million more years, we should be preparing for a million years on what do do when the candle in the sky goes out.

The sun will swallow up the earth before it goes out.

are you crazy? assuming the human race overcomes all of the immediate problems, in the near future we´re probably going to need to relocate to another planet(s) or satellites just to survive for another few generations after our own. keeping in mind the exponential technological advance that spawned 90% of the objects we use about 50 years ago, the world in a hundred years is going to be EXTREMELY different.

some solutions will come, as well as some more problems, probably some new messias somewhere along the path.. and you want us to survive that process about a thousand times?


oh and we dont really have spaceships, not the kind you´re thinking about any way. if we cant get halfway across the solar system before running out of fuel or dying of old age, how do you expect to get near enough to another star? albeit the apparent size of stars, a lot of them are a few hundred times larger than our sun, do you realize that even at the speed of light it would take thousands of years?

oh and we dont really have spaceships, not the kind you´re thinking about any way. if we cant get halfway across the solar system before running out of fuel or dying of old age, how do you expect to get near enough to another star? albeit the apparent size of stars, a lot of them are a few hundred times larger than our sun, do you realize that even at the speed of light it would take thousands of years?

as the sun goes red giant mars will become quite a bit warmer for a good deal of time and will give us a "stepping stone" to something bigger. As for the relocation to another whole solar system?

We dont need a sun.... If we insisted on "natural" lighting we could create self sustaining ships with say a thousand or so crew and just drift off towards a likely prospect and once we get to the star in say 100 generations(or more) we'd set up shop.


A self sustaining ship that would last 50,000 years? We'd have to have some pretty badass materials to last that long though.

as the sun goes red giant mars will become quite a bit warmer for a good deal of time and will give us a "stepping stone" to something bigger. As for the relocation to another whole solar system?

We dont need a sun.... If we insisted on "natural" lighting we could create self sustaining ships with say a thousand or so crew and just drift off towards a likely prospect and once we get to the star in say 100 generations(or more) we'd set up shop.


A self sustaining ship that would last 50,000 years? We'd have to have some pretty badass materials to last that long though.

That could spawn some interesting religion/spiritual ideals in people. After a few generations, I imagine Earth will have been just about forgotten, making this drifting mass humanity's home. People would start praying for us to finally hit a new home planet and all that shit.

Anyways, "The universe is shaped exactly like the Earth, if you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were."

I just found it odd I was listening to that song when someone mentioned that idea. Seems like a legit one to me, explains infinity. Could also dabble in finding the perimeters outside this universe, or other universes could be reached through higher dimensions?

This is my first time in Mad Scientists so I barely touched on anything, but I like it already and hope to learn more and post more.

Schrodinger's cat is really just a criticism (or "anti-proof" if you want to be so brazen as to use that term :-p) of the Copenhagen interpretation, which, among a few other things, states that quantum mechanical descriptions should pretty much sound like their classical descriptions.

Schrodinger's Cat is merely a thought experiment intended to demonstrate the absurdity of applying quantum mechanical descriptions to "real-life" classical systems. Somehow, people manage to overlook the basic principle that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE CAT TO BE DEAD AND ALIVE AT THE SAME TIME and extrapolate all this Everett interpretation many-worlds bullshit ("WELL THERE'S A SEPARATE UNIVERSE WHERE THE CAT LIVES!!!11") from something that is intended to make you realize how retarded that extrapolation really is.

This is why quantum mechanics is said to be inaccessible to the common man. People can't even realize that the cat is FUCKING DEAD!

I know exactly what Schrodinger's Cat experiment was about/for, hence why I mentioned it....

I know exactly what Schrodinger's Cat experiment was about/for, hence why I mentioned it....

I didn't say you didn't. (That's a poorly-constructed sentence if I ever saw one.)

I just figured I would append that huge angry disclaimer because tons of people, I'm sure, don't know what Schrodinger's Cat is about.

Alright, as long as we have an understanding. :D