Wow, mindbending thread

I always wonder something similar myself... how can anything at all exist, let alone infinity.

I always think if every action has a reaction, then every action is also a reaction, and in that case the first action must have taken place without reacting to something... Therefore existence is impossible. We aren't here you guys

I'm pretty sure that 'near-infinity' is the only thing we know for certain does not exist. As anything short of infinity is infinitely smaller.

Yep. Infinity doesn't have size...it's either infinite or it's not.

I don't think that word means what you think it means...

Which would work... except they've recently noticed that when matter enters a black hole, the black hole expands by that mass but when a black hole collapses and disappears, it fails to leave behind any trace of the matter it consumed. (It leaves behind radioactive traces of where it was and some of what it consumes.) As of now, they have no idea where the consumed untraceable matter goes... and that would lead one to believe that all the matter that exists now won't always do so.

And I've never honestly thought of infinity in these terms.. very interesting read.

Lol...which word, now?

Theory.

Want to elaborate, or no?

Theory, in common usage is taken to mean the same as the word hypothesis, but in scientific terms, a theory is an explanation that best applies to the observed empirical evidence. It's not called Hypothetical Physics.

Yes, I know that. That's why it's "theoretical" and not "applied" (for example). The distinction is there to clarify that mathematical models must be used in place of experimentation and application to support some hypotheses, yes? These are things that, for the time being, can only exist as theories that cannot be directly tested or applied. That's the point I was making...that it would be silly to insist that theoretical models that can't be tested outside of seeing if they are consistent with other untestable models are absolute truths.

There's an infinite amount of even numbers.

There's an infinite amount of whole numbers.

But since there are two whole numbers for every even number, the infinite amount of whole numbers is twice as big as the infinite amount of even numbers.

The belief that something "goes faster towards the end of infinity" is inaccurate, as infinity has no end, there is no measure of its length or the distance between the start (if there is one) and the end (which there is none). Infinity has no velocity.

That doesn't make it a bigger infinity. They both go forever so there's an infinite amount of both of them, even if you can say there are more whole numbers than even numbers.

Every time the word infinity comes up, it's important to distinguish between potential infinity and actual infinity, because this word is used in different ways to mean different things.

When someone says that space and time is infinite, because it will keep expanding forever, we're only talking about potential infinity. If you freeze the whole universe at any single point in time and count the number of hours that have passed since time 0, you will never get infinite as an answer, no matter how much time has passed. Even if it expands forever, it will never reach infinity. It will simply keep "approaching" infinity, forever. Nothing ever goes from finite to infinity by adding more finite quantities. If one hour passes on top of any finite number of hours, infinity is never the result.

Actual infinity though, it the real problem. If the universe is finite (evidence points in that direction) then I think it's safe to say that nothing in it can be actually infinite because everything in it is contained and limited by a finite universe. Trying to conceive of something infinite in a finite thing gives rise to all sorts of logical problems. However, it's still possible that something "outside" the universe is actually infinite. There may be an actual infinite number of universes. In that case, everything exists. Right now, you're reading this an infinite number of times in an infinite number of universes. You're also dead an infinite number of times and you're also having six with 3 Ukrainian girls right now, an infinite number of times. Anything that is just logically possible, must happen, an infinite number of times. There's no before of after, no more of less, everything just is. We're only experiencing a finite set within the everything.

Well we know that energy is neither created nor destroyed; it only changes form. So I guess that makes energy finite, but it also came from nothingness.

What?

I can't possibly give you an answer to such a vague question, especially when I'm not the only person you were speaking to.

I didn't hear about that. That is...Unique. Perhaps one day, we'll figure out where its gone.

Let me give this a bash.

If the universe is still expanding, then that means that it is finite, yes? If it was infinite, it wouldn't be expanding. It would just be.
The prevailing theory currently is that the universe is constantly expanding and that it will continue to do so. But even if it always, forever, expanded, it would still be finite because, again, if it weren't finite, it wouldn't be expanding.
What I mean by near-infinite is that the universe is constantly striving toward this state, but that it will never attain it.

It is theorised that outside of our bubble of finite-ness there is infinity. Even if one has the outside of our universe in mind, one must consider things with this proviso: the rules, the math and the science, that applies to our universe could well not, outside of it.

So is there such a thing as infinity? Maybe, and maybe not.

I'VE FOUND THE ANSWER PEOPLE!

Because it can.

Nothing is infinite. It's as easy as that.

My comment was only addressing the concept of "near-infinity." If something has boundaries, but is expanding quickly enough that you'll never be able to perceive the boundaries of it it's not infinite. I guess you might say that it's infinite from your perspective since you can't conceive of its boundaries, but things are either infinite or they're not. There's no "sort-of infinite."

Is this piece of string of infinite length?

How long is this infinitely-long piece of string?

Two completely different questions. The answer to the first question is "no," because if you can measure its length then it's not infinite. The answer to the second question is "infinity."

The human mind cannot fully comprehend infinity. We live in a finite world.

Grr.. I'm trying to find the press release via Hubble (which is where I'm sure I read that) but I can't find it now. So don't quote me on that. I"ll keep looking though.

No! Aargh. You missed this part: "What I mean by near-infinite is that the universe is constantly striving toward this state, but that it will never attain it." You can broaden this near-infinite idea to other things, too. Pi, for instance. It (apparently?) has a "near-infinite" string of numbers. Then you have lines on graphs that are "near-infinite"-ly reaching towards the X or Y axis but never quite touch it. Etc.

I wasn't talking about the state of "infinity", I was talking about the... I can't think of a word for this now. In any case, I wasn't talking about "sort-of infinite" anything.