1. Infinity is not a direction. It is not a "real number", "irrational number, "imaginary number" but it is a number. You are making the same mistake the Pythagorans mad with irrational numbers. Embrace infinity. It is logical.
2. Of course it is a scientific question. It deals with the physical Universe.

It seems like created vs organic and eternal vs. impermanent are separate things.

Infinity is a direction, not a number you can conceive of . As an a variable tends toward infinity, an expression may converge on a value. This does not mean we think of infinity as a number.

The question of whether the universe was created does not seem like a scientific question to me. Science does experiments on things in the universe. I don't see a way for it to step outside the universe.

I want to answer that. lol
Very likely a Universe does not have a beginning. Why is that harder to comprehend than if it had a beginning? Because then you would have to answer the questions of what caused, came before the beginning?
How does one comprehend their own death-and why is that any harder to comprehend than the whole of time before you were born?

well, I think Feynman's problems were in part due to not facing where the logic should have taken him. He did in fact create something very powerful and quite real however. That was my point above. Physicists work with infinity all the time creating real tangible physical things embodying the concept of infinity. They don't have to be able to explain it to know that it exists. I wasn't sure where you wanted to take this discussion, but the fact that we do not have all the answers is not a justification for a mystical answer.

"Science does experiments on things in the universe. I don't see a way for it to step outside the universe."

Interesting point this. I'm not sure if I agree with it. After all, didn't Isaac Newton correctly and accurately determine the mass of the Earth without ever leaving the surface?

Hiya meanie ;). Honestly, technical writing was the only class I ever failed despite maintaining a 4.0 through my first 2 years of college and getting accused of plagiarism in a different literature course (I think, perhaps, for writing something too good, because the professor failed to produce any evidence) - maybe that's why I'm touchy about the word salad thing. I'll try to keep my posts shorter, particularly when using my iPad with tiny comment boxes.

Is it poor form to cite a dictionary?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/finite
Finite - 1.a. Having bounds; limited

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/infinit...
Infinite - 1. Having no boundaries or limits.

OK I found it. please read http://www.spiritandflesh.com/Quantum_Ph... and you'll see that if these giants of physics were unhappy, I'm totally lost.

I'm trying to find the relevant Richard Feynman quote as to how he and his co-Noble Prize winners "solved" the infinities problem. I'll post it when located.

In the meantime, thanks for the book recommendation.

In an effort to explain the missing anti-matter in the universe, I came up with the following idea which I posted on my zazle.com/thingslearned store. Any feedback appriciated..


Matter and anti-matter are identical except they have opposite electrical charges.
They are anti-particles.

Einstein's equation reduces to its most famous form E = mc². In the 1930's physicists discovered the equation worked in both directions. That is, if enough energy exists in a given area, mass in the form of a pair of particles (electron and positron ) would be created, travel a short distance, then collide and annihilate each other with 100% of their mass would ending up as
energy (E). This process takes an extremely short time; about 0.000000000000000001 of a second.

Astronomers tell us that when big bang occurred there was an equal amount of matter and
anti-matter created. Now, however, the anti-matter is missing.

What if just prior to the big bang the only thing in existence was an enormous energy field and the universe is just an example of pair production writ large? Would the ratio of the combined masses of the pair to the time taken to complete the process be the same for the electron/positron pair as for the matter/anti-matter universe?

The mass for an electron/positron pair is ≈ 1.8 X 10 ^ -30 Kg.

The time span for an electron/positron pair from inception to destruction is ≈ 10 ^ -18 Sec

Estimates for the mass of the universe range from 8 X 10 ^ 52 Kg to 1.4 X 10 ^ 53 Kg. X 2 to account for the anti-matter universe.

The ratio for the election/positron pair is

1.8 X 10 ^ -30 Kg
------------------------- ≈ 1.8 X 10 ^ -12
1 X 10 ^ -18 Sec

Hence, the ratio for the matter/anti-matter universes is

2.8 X 10 ^ 53 Kg
------------------------ ≈ 1.8 X 10 ^ -12
1.6 X 10 ^ 65 Sec

And

1.6 X 10 ^ 65 Sec ≈ 5.1 X 10 ^ 57 years

Would be the time it will take for the matter/anti-matter universes to collide and disappear
back into the energy field.

Therefore, the universe has a beginning and an end, the missing anti-matter is accounted for,
and simplicity is elegant.

hey word salad ;), we deal with the infinite all the time. the opposite of infinite is no finite, but really zero.

Great post, thanks!

I don't want to oversimplify the conundrum or claim to have any answers... I used to wonder what was beyond the universe if it is, in fact, bounded. The, very strange, and obviously silly, answer I came up with was "blank paper". No better, really, than "turtles all the way down" in reference to that which a flat earth might rest upon.

If our fundamental epistemological tools are integration and differentiation, and we apply differentiation to the question, I think there is at least a proper definition of "infinite".

To perceive light, one cannot fail to perceive lack thereof..

To perceive heat, one cannot fail to perceive lack thereof.

In theory, every perceptual/conceptual differentiation simultaneously co-creates 2 opposite percepts/concepts... We can say: light and not light or dark and not dark, hot and not hot or cold and not cold, etc. In this context, the concept of "finite" was co-created with it's opposite. "Finite" is defined as "having limits or bounds". The concept of "finite" is definitely abstract in reference to something like the circumference of the earth - we cannot perceive it directly, but we can infer from more basic epistemological concepts that the earth, does, in fact, have a circumference.

At any rate, this line of thought leads to the conclusion that "infinite" is an abstract concept defined as "having no limits or no bounds".

Because there are finite things that we can perceive and finite things we can only conceive, "finite" should be just as troubling as "infinite". I don't find either to be very troubling these days, knowing that their conceptual structure is well grounded in epistemology.

Everything is conceptually infinite until we can identify its limits or bounds, so while nothing may actually be infinite, there is still utility in the concept.

I hate to say it, but you may have to wait for infinity to get a satisfactory answer... Wouldn't it be more productive to make a study of the finite in the meantime?

As always, I'm open to comments and constructive criticism. Don't go easy on me if you disagree with my reasoning.

In an infinite universe (even one only infinite in time), any possible event, not matter how improbable, has not only occurred, but certainly has occurred (and also will occur again) an infinite number of times.

Our current knowledge of the universe points to a "big bang" about 15B years ago. The question is what was there before that?
1) Nothing. (How did the universe come into being?)
2) A stable state of 'something'. (What destabilized it? Do Newton's laws apply in the metaverse, or only in this universe?)
3) A prior universe that ended in a 'big crunch', the 'big bang' is the rebound. (Are fundamental physical constants and laws the same in the two universes, or different?)
4) The universe is simulated, something analogous to a 'universe simulator program' running on some computer hardware somewhere; the question doesn't make sense, like "what program is running when the power is off?". (This begs the question: what about the next layer out. Is it also simulated? When do the layers of simulation end?)

I can't think of any experiment that could distinguish the above cases.

Big Bang: the most likely answer is something like a super black hole called a white hole(do NOT call me racist) and "universes" are being created all the time (possibly destroyed as well). I am not sure it follows, an infinite universe in time, every event has occurred and will occur an infinite number of times.
So, to me, it requires a universe limited in size (present understanding does not square with).
There is no reason to suggest that the basic rules of Physics would vary from one Universe to the next.
Last comment is Platonic view of metaphysics. Rand does not prescribe to this, nor I.

Quantum mechanics uses infinite matrices to understand quantum mechanical systems all the time. This is not an admission of ignorance(?). Mathematicians uses infinite sequences. Despite the fact that a decimal version of 1/9 is not a statement of ignorance, it is a profound statement of understanding.
Phases in electrical signals are directly related to the the square root of negative one. That clearly shows people can "wrap their mind around the physical meaning."

As used in physics and mathematics, infinity and infinities are admissions of ignorance. For instance, the reason physicists tell you an object cannot meet or exceed the speed of light is as a result of Einstein's equation for the mass of an object in motion; Mm = Mo / √ 1 - V2/C2
where M = mass of an object, C = speed of light in a vacuum, and V = the velocity of an object clearly shows that as V → C, the denominator → 0 and Mm → ∞.

Therefore, he concluded that no object could travel at the speed of light and, in fact, could not even equal the speed of light. We still have no concept for infinite mass.

I don't believe anyone has wrapped their mind around the physical meaning of the square root of minus one since someone stumbled on to it in the Middle Ages. We use it because it works.

I still don't know if the Universe was created or is Eternal.

I have often thought about that. Is it possible the universe or anything for that matter does not have a beginning. How can the human mind comprehend that. It's a question without an answer.