Infinity

Space, Time and Stuff 3.

I recently heard a news broadcaster use the phrase ‘to infinity and beyond’. At first, I wondered if we were becoming so desperate to be overdramatic that we were resorting to absolutely absurd phrases. Then I was reminded that it was a quote from the film Toy Story. At least that made sense of the absurdity. After all, we all know that, by definition, infinity has no boundaries. It doesn’t even have a centre, because any point you choose within infinity, has infinity stretching away from it in every direction. Hence, no centre.

The human brain, understandably, has real trouble visualising the concept of infinity, but perhaps part of the reason is that we simply don’t want to believe in it.

I remember reading a blog where the writer was making fun of the old saying about people in the days before Columbus, looking out at the ocean and saying that if you sailed out too far you would sail off the edge. His assertion was that the saying was ridiculous because scientists and philosophers had already proven the world must be spherical.

But even in today’s world, most people won’t know what theories scientists are proposing, and many won’t believe them anyway. We still have people who believe in a flat Earth.

Yes, we can trace the first theories of the Earth being a sphere back to the Ancient Greeks and Aristotle. That information was recorded and passed down, and we know about it today. But in the times of Columbus there was no internet, no television, no radio, no books, and no newspapers. Very few people would have known about the idea, and probably even fewer believed it.

I have no idea if anyone from those times actually said the words. I tend to think the saying may have been invented later to poke fun at their lack of knowledge. Personally, I believe the important point is the idea behind the words. People simply didn’t believe anything could stretch forever. The ocean had to end somewhere. So, on a flat Earth, if you sailed out too far, then …

If you still think that’s crazy, why do so many scientists up to this very day keep searching for the edge of the universe?

Okay, it’s connected to the Big Bang theory and watching the slow spread of what we call the universe, but there must also at least be a lot of curiosity about what lies beyond the edge of what we call the universe.

Is anything going beyond the edge swallowed by nothingness?

Infinity is such a difficult concept for the human brain to accept. Yet, why should this be so? These days it seems to me that the idea of an infinite three-dimensional space makes more sense than any of the other ideas I’ve heard.

I don’t believe in a fourth dimension which doesn’t answer the question anyway.

I don’t believe in different realities existing in the same space and which also doesn’t answer the question.

Does our universe exist inside empty space? That also doesn’t answer the question as how far does that nothing stretch?

There are other universes outside our own. That also doesn’t answer the questions as all those universes still must exist inside a three-dimensional space and how far does that stretch.

I keep coming back to the idea of infinity.

So, why don’t we like the idea that seems to be the simplest and most obvious answer?

For a moment, let’s forget the Big Bang theory, and any other theories and let’s imagine that space is infinite.

Now, here we have a tiny blue planet spinning through a tiny solar system within a tiny Milky Way galaxy which is part of the tiny universe, as far as our best telescopes see at the moment. I say tiny because that part of the universe compared to infinity is nothing. You simply can’t compare any area or volume to infinity. There is no proportion or percentage. Technically, there is no comparison. The best you could manage would be nothing. And if you magnified that area of known space by a million, or even by a million billion, the best comparison would still be nothing.

Now, running around on that tiny blue planet is a parasitic species that calls itself the human race and they think everything is about them.

No wonder they don’t want to consider the possibility of infinity.

Anything but infinity.

Yep, just my thoughts. Nope, not much research.