Why universe can be infinite

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by rcscwc, Dec 27, 2011.

  1. rcscwc Registered Senior Member

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    Why universe can be infinite

    Split from http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=111573


    Hmm. Why not?


    Our Sun is a just one among other hundred stars in our local clusters. Star clusters, bound or open, are just that : CLUSTERS. Many such clusters are organized into super clusters. These super clusters are organized into a galaxy, with a central core, every tom, dick and harry going around it.


    Hmmm. Galaxies in turn are organized into clusters, and super clusters etc. Till, there is "our" observable universe. All this is a matter of observed facts.


    But why stop there? Universe is but a mega/ giga/terra cluster of super clusters of universe. So our universe might jolly well be a part of a cluster of universes, a member of still larger cluster, till there is a super cluster of universes. Go forward, pal, you end up with an infinite number of universes spread over an illimitable space. What is there to stop you?
    ***

    A mind experiment

    Travel 7 billion lyrs from here. What will you find? A half empty sky? Or a sky still filled with "strange" galaxies? Go ahead and THINK, exercises your grey matter. Olber, after all, was more of a philosopher than an astronomer.
     
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  3. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    Take a look at the Hubble Deep Field ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

    Supposedly that is as far as we can "see" at this time. I've been told that it has taken the light from the galaxies visible in that photo something like 13.7 billion years to reach us - or that is what it looked like 13.7 billion years ago!
    I've also been told that the universe is only somewhere in the neighborhood of 14.3 billion years old - yet the galaxies in that pictures were 13.7 billion lightyears away away only about a half a billion years after the "Big Bang"?
    My feeling is that if somehow we could access the view of another Hubble type telescope positioned 13.7 billion LY's away from us and pointed in the same direction away from us - the image it showed would probably be very similar.
    I've been told that over just the last few thousands of years, as a civilization, we have known that; the Earth is the center of the universe - the Earth is flat - for man to fly is a daydream - the speed of sound will never be broken...etc...etc...
    In a few thousand years we seemed to have learned quite a bit, often learning along the way that we were previously wrong and having to "relearn" some established facts!
    In my short time on this particular rock, I have been trying to learn as much as I can - and the more I learn, the more I realize that there is even more to learn!
    An infinitely large universe would be of a pretty good size but I personally believe the universe to be INCOHERENTLY larger than that.
    Big Bang...I do not align myself to that theory. Possibly there might have been a "Local" singularity of sorts that may have produced what we perceive as our known universe, but that is only one of all to many possibilities.
    Our knowledge of everything expands at realistically, a snails pace. If we could increase that at even an "infinite" rate, we could never ever know everything conclusively.
    The universe is probably incoherently, infinitely larger than we will ever possibly be able to conceive of!
    Now, of course, you must understand that this whole previous discourse is nothing more than the ravings of admittedly, the dumbest man on earth.
     
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  5. Boris2 Valued Senior Member

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

    http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter3.html

    you can't get larger than infinite.

    the Big bang describes this universe. we may be a bud off another universe, there may even be an infinite number of universe. we don't know this at this point in time.
     
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  7. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

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    Its very dangerous to say things like 'you can't get larger than infinity'. A space being infinite doesn't mean it is exhaustive. You can have an infinite space contained within a larger infinite space. Even when just considering sets of objects, rather than continuums , you can have different sizes of inifinities.

    For example there are infinitely many whole numbers but there is also infinitely many even numbers, which form a subset of the whole numbers. Even worse there's actually the same cardinality of each set, so for each whole number you can give one and only one even number and vice versa. Arguing from this direction without nailing your mathematical colours to the mast is doomed to problems.
     
  8. Boris2 Valued Senior Member

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    i understand that alpha. when talking about this universe being infinite then i assume we are just talking about this universe and not whether or not we are part of, connected to or otherwise of any other universe.
     
  9. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

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    Fair enough. Personally I think getting into notions of 'before' this universe in regards to another universe we budded off from without making your discussion precise and formal is even worse! There be dragons.
     
  10. Boris2 Valued Senior Member

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    I usually just stick to this universe. it is ok to speculate about what might be but if we want to talk about what we do know then sticking to one universe is enough to be going on with.

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  11. Big Chiller Registered Senior Member

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    You're right but in terms of mathematical abstractions only we have no such evidence that the physical reality* of the universe can be like mathematical abstractions even hypothetically.

    *Here physical reality goes for anything that can be measured that means matter and energy because even elementary particles have been measured to have 'cross-sections'.
     
  12. NietzscheHimself Banned Banned

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    If you were outside the universe looking at the singularity as it exists on some scale, what IS behind you?
     
  13. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Dark matter they claim in the multi-verse theory because distances between universes are exponentially growing away from each universe that are developed in the ocean of dark matter.
     
  14. NietzscheHimself Banned Banned

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    Oh... More universe... Who didn't see that coming?
     
  15. Boris2 Valued Senior Member

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    if you are standing outside this universe then you can make up anything you wish.
     
  16. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Our education systems need to be completely rejigged to explain what the Big Bang theory actually says about our universe, in layman's terms, with a couple of pretty pictures/animations to illustrate. It's not an exploding ball, contrary to the popular layman misconception.
     
  17. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Well actually it isn't a universe but the space between them that is what dark matter is made up of. Until a series of events happen and a another big bang appears then from the darm matter itself another newborn universe appears. This is the basis, I believe , for the multi verse theory.
     
  18. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    What I was trying to say was that when I think of "Infinite" and "Universe", I take that to mean "ALL OF EVERYWHERE"!! I can 'Grog" that if it were possible to pilot some form of craft at multiples of the "Speed of Light", and I set off in ANY direction and never, ever changed my course - no matter HOW LONG or HOW FAR I travelled - I do not believe I would ever get to the END or EDGE of the universe!
    I believe we, as a civiization, are still in our "Infantcy" especially where TRUE FACTUAL KNOWLEDGE is concerned. Sure, we have made a few "Baby Steps", but we have not even entirely figured out our own little planet.
    Our knowledge of just this planet is probably actually no greater than a fleas knowledge of the cat or dog it lives on!
    Just my thoughts on the matter,.......but, remember, I readily admit to being the dumbest man on earth!!!!
     
  19. river

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    I disagree

    the evidence of the infinity of the physical reality lies in the reality that , the physical must be infinite because the opposite , doesn't produce or forms anything

    hence we are talking about nothing

    and since nothing has no physical form , mathematics does not , and cannot exist within nothing

    hence then , mathematics is dependent upon the infinite physical manifestation forms
     
  20. rcscwc Registered Senior Member

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    Assuming BB did happen, it does not mean that it was lnot aocal event in a much larger universe. Second, we cannot see beyond 13.7 blyrs. But on our terrestrial surface we cannot see beyond the horizon. Non perception does not preclude a world beyond the horizon.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2012
  21. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    How can an infinite universe expand into infinity plus 1? If the universe can expand beyond infinity, it wasn't infinite to begin with.

    One possible explanation is large scale infinity is already in place. The expansion of space-time is creating small scale infinity, by filling in the space-time between space-time, on the way to subdividing the infinite universe into infinite pieces.
     
  22. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    small scale infinity, thats awesome

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  23. Boris2 Valued Senior Member

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    a mininfinity?
     

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