Finite or Infinite Number of Possible Images on an LCD Display?

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by danshawen, Apr 8, 2015.

  1. Layman Totally Internally Reflected Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,001
    You misunderstood what I meant by using scientific notation. I am not sure how you are supposed to use scientific notation in binary or if a method for that even exist. In binary, the number of possible images on a black and white screen would be a 1 with 2,000,000 zeros after it, if you counted the all black picture or all zero's. Then the number would be 2,000,000 digits long in binary, because that would be the total of all the number of 1's and 0's that you could possibly have for 2,000,000 pixels. You could just say each pixel is a digit. Then if you counted all the way up to 2,000,000 digits, you would have gone through every single possibility of combinations of 1's and 0's for each pixel!

    Then that would be the exact answer in binary. I just wasn't sure how to put that number in the base 10 system, since binary calculators don't seem to accept scientific notion. Then if the binary value is 2,000,000 digits long, I would expect the base 10 number to be shorter than that.
     
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  3. Layman Totally Internally Reflected Valued Senior Member

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    1,001
    You could just imagine that the screen just showed 0's or 1's instead of black or white on each pixel. It would then display a number in binary that had 2,000,000 digits. Then if that screen counted all the way up to being full of 1's on the screen, it would have went through every combination. Then if you added 1 to that number to count all 0's, the next number after 2,000,000 one's would be a 1 with 2,000,000 zero's after it or 1E2,000,000.

    So, a black and white television with 2,000,000 pixels would have 1E2,000,000 possible different pictures in binary.
     
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  5. Layman Totally Internally Reflected Valued Senior Member

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    You could use the same method for a television that had 10 different colors. You could say that each color was then a different number 0 through 9. If it started counting from 0 to a number with 2,000,000 9's, it would then have gone through every possible combination. Then a television with 10 different colors and 2,000,000 pixels would then have 1E2,000,000 or 10^2,000,000 possible different pictures it could show if you counted zero as being a number. It would be the next number after having 2,000,000 nine's.
     
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  7. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    And if you could only completely transition a pixel all the way from black to white, or vice versa, in 1 second, and the universe and time ended before all such images could be displayed, well that would just be a finite sort of universe then, wouldn't it? Hardly enough time even to work out how discrete math works.

    Welcome to the real world, where the universe regularly defies absolutes even if your math doesn't. There are more possible camera angles to observe a black and white rendition of a universe while it is still expanding than there are combinations of pixels on that screen.

    And there are many more than just one mathematical expressions using finite numbers which evaluate to infinity than just 1/0.
     
  8. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,885
    It is incredible that this Thread has had so many replies & discussion.

    The issue is very simple: 2 million black/white pixels can provide 2E2,000,000 displays, a finite number.

    As posted by me earlier(paraphrase, not exact quote)
    BTW: Some Posts have what appear to me to be typos or a misunderstanding of standard notation.

    1E2,000,00 = 1​
     

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