OT: What is the Universe Expanding into?

[Taz-in-Space]

Tell me any number. No matter how large that number will ALWAYS have a number larger than it and no matter how tiny it will always have another smaller.

Ahhh, yes; but that would assume that I ever got done writing down my number. But since I am going for the very BIGGEST number, I would be still writing digits down when I died. So, FOR ME AT LEAST, there would still be no proof!

[Fyron]

Ok. Any number you can think of, call it n, there is at least one number bigger than it, n + 1. There is no magical cutoff where you can no longer add 1. Thus, numbers can be infinitely large.

Also, you can in no way dispute the fact that 1/3 in decimal form is an infinitely long number. There is no point at which it magically drops the 3s.

[ February 11, 2004, 03:57: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

it's called logical extension. once you've done 0.33, you can assume that it repeats infinitly, becuase, well, i'll let Fyron explain if it needs more explaining becuase my brain just crashed.

[Roanon]

Your picture of an expanding balloon is not bad. But it's more like the universe is located on the SURFACE of that balloon. We do not have a "center" of the universe. Of course, this is a rough translation, as the universe is 3D and the balloon surface only 2D. Now you just have to think about a 4D balloon with a 3D surface

So, keeping that picture, it is very difficult to tell what the universe is expanding into, as there is no "into" - at least not for us. A two-dimensional being living on the surface of said balloon would not be able to comprehend the existance or location of an "inside" or "outside" of that balloon. For the same reason, it is not possible to locate the spot of the Big Bang, as it is equally distant from every spot in the universe but not located within that universe any more - we are not able to see the "inside" of that balloon and to the center there.

[Taz-in-Space]

OK. Think of it this way:

Nobody has ever written down a SERIOUS try at the ultimate number. At some point, every attempt was halted because of the time factor.
AND every attempt will be that way unless you know of a being that NEVER DIES. So just because these lesser numbers have always been able to be added to one, is no PROOF that there is no number where this is NOT the case.

Thus you LOGICALLY proved it, but NOT physically proved it!

The concept of infinity is not provable directly by its very nature. That is my whole point and the reason that I dislike the whole concept!

[Atrocities]

even nothingness is something.

Or you could look at it this way, nothingness is time static. You fall into a void, but no matter how far you fall time has no meaning because the void is timeless. So you could fall for a centillion years to the 1 centrilllionth power and not fall that far.

Example:

Tribes maps. The map exsist, it has form and function and it something that a tribes player can interact with and exsist upon. Fall off that map and you will fall forever into the void beyond. The nothingness that is the void is devoid of all forms of physical form and function. In a digital world if I fell from a tribes map in 1998 and left the game on, I would still be falling today.

But to grasp the concept that the universe is endless and is expanding into something, even if that something nonthingness, that nonthingness was there first, and had to give birth to the universe itself.

What came before the universe? All of this matter, energy, and such had to have come from somewhere it could not have just all of a sudden exsisted out of nothingness now could it?

And if we can understand the concept of time and space, the universe and death, why are we alone? No other creature on earth, that we know of, has ever, say for man, pondered the universe and what lays beyond it.

Mybe the universe only exsist as long as we think it does. That when the Last human dies, so dies this universe. So by reproducing, we keep the universe, and the genes that make up our race, passed down from one generation to the next for nearly a million years, stay alive.

[PvK]

Universe is a classic 8-bit starship command adventure game with ship design, systems energy management, spiraling orbits, etc., which came on four floppy disks in a cool padded binder.

It expanded into sequels Universe II, Universe III, Breach, Breach 2, Rules of Engagement...



PvK

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Taz-in-Space:
OK. Think of it this way:

Nobody has ever written down a SERIOUS try at the ultimate number. At some point, every attempt was halted because of the time factor.
AND every attempt will be that way unless you know of a being that NEVER DIES. So just because these lesser numbers have always been able to be added to one, is no PROOF that there is no number where this is NOT the case.

Thus you LOGICALLY proved it, but NOT physically proved it!

The concept of infinity is not provable directly by its very nature. That is my whole point and the reason that I dislike the whole concept!

It is proveable by induction, which is a highly valid form of mathematical proof. "physically" proving that a number is infinite in length is silly and a waste of time.

And if we can understand the concept of time and space, the universe and death, why are we alone? No other creature on earth, that we know of, has ever, say for man, pondered the universe and what lays beyond it.

That is because there is only one form of sentient life on the Earth...

[ February 11, 2004, 04:22: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

And if we can understand the concept of time and space, the universe and death, why are we alone? No other creature on earth, that we know of, has ever, say for man, pondered the universe and what lays beyond it.

Mybe the universe only exsist as long as we think it does. That when the Last human dies, so dies this universe. So by reproducing, we keep the universe, and the genes that make up our race, passed down from one generation to the next for nearly a million years, stay alive.

Atrocities, when thoughts like that start going through your head, it's an indication that your thinking to much. go watch spongebob squarepants, seriously, it's more productive than thoughts like that.

[Taz-in-Space]

"physically" proving that a number is infinite in length is silly and a waste of time.

I agree. I also still maintain that stating that an infinite void exists outside the universe is also silly. Nobody knows. IT IS JUST IDLE SPECULATION - A GUESS.