Infinity is a waste of time

[weeman]

Why do so many people relate the ideas of infinity to the nature of the universe? Wouldn't the universe not exist like it does today if it were infinite in size and/or age? <br /><br />Would our planet (or our entire galaxy for that matter) even exist if the universe had been here for an infinite amount of time before our existence? If it took infinite time for Earth to form, then it shouldn't have formed in the first place, because it took infinite time!<br /><br />It also seems to me that the lack of contact that we've had from ET intelligence serves as some proof that the universe is not infinite in age. If other sophisticated species have been around for some exorbitant amount of time, then they should have been able to set foot on Earth (or contact it) at some point in time. Now, I could understand that it's possible that ET's may have been here before any modern day Man existed.<br /><br />Here is one way that I like to look at it. It's possible that other species throughout the galaxy (assuming they exist) haven't been able to contact us simply because their technology isn't much better than ours. If our estimate of the universe' age is true, some 14 billion years, then could it be possible that all life might be advancing at the same rate? In similar stages?<br /><br />Obviously it would take incredible forms of technology and transportation for any species to contact us from other galaxies. So, it would make more sense to me that the only species we would ever come in contact with would be from right here in our own Milky Way!<br /><br />Lets say that the Milky Way forms, the stars in the Milky Way then begin their cycles of life. Many will become type G2 stars (like our sun) which are very habitable stars. Could we then say that if other solar systems have similar stars that their planets are along a timeline that is very similar to Earth's? This might mean that a sophisticated species is at a point in the timeline of their existence that is close to Mankind's.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Techies: We do it in the dark. </font></strong></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.</strong><strong>" -Albert Einstein </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

one factor why no contact happened might be the reason I gave elsewhere here - that even very much more advanced technology might not be sufficient to overcome the cosmic distances (ie., no wormhole or FTL travel etc may be possible no matter how much time a civilization may have to its development)<br /><br />in short nobody cares that peoples of the universe may not ever meet, its not somehow given that they have to, there is no god or anybody who would care, there is no cosmic justice, nature just doesn't give a damn - naturally <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />and naturally you left this possible reason out from your accounting, nobody wants to consider the possibly harsh reality of which I admit I have no definite certainty but then again there is no definite clue yet that it isn't so<br /><br />lately and a bit too late in my life I have seen a bunch of those star treks and gates and what not and I see where the enthusiasm of the young generation comes from, they are fed with their mother's milk the effortless whizzing not only above planet's surface but also between stars and across galaxies and better LOL and so it is no wonder they today believe that today's fantasies may become reality tomorrow, if you mix in at most high school understanding of physics if even that you get forums like these<br /><br />BTW I believe in oscillating universe in which all life gets flushed out of existence during the contraction phase (and possibly even during the highest expansion phase) even if that never comes close to BB single point nonsense but that still leaves more than enough time for super advanced civilization to develop many times over<br /><br />of course the time of these oscillations if finite and nobody knows or can know how long that goes on or why or how it started, we just can't know and that is pretty certain knowledge IMO <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Time passes infinitely quickly in an empty universe, there being nothing on which for it to impinge upon.<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[weeman]

Yes, I don't think that it is necessarily in our destiny to find other civilizations. It wouldn't do much for us other than changing some perspectives that we might have of the universe. <br /><br />Might religion change as well? It could change the beliefs of many people around the world.<br /><br />My main point in my previous post is that I don't believe in an eternal universe. Einstein believed at one point in his life that the universe was static, it was eternal and never changing. Of course, the BB theory does not rely on an eternal universe, but rather a universe that is finite in age. <br /><br /><font color="yellow"> BTW I believe in oscillating universe in which all life gets flushed out of existence during the contraction phase </font><br /><br />Are you talking about a cyclic universe? Expands, contracts, expands, contracts, and so on? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Techies: We do it in the dark. </font></strong></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.</strong><strong>" -Albert Einstein </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[SpeedFreek]

He may be alluding to Loop Quantum Gravity.<br /><br />In 2006, Abhay Ashtekar released a paper claiming that according to loop quantum gravity, the singularity of the Big Bang is avoided. What the researchers found was a prior collapsing universe. Since gravity becomes repulsive near Planck density according to their simulations, this resulted in a "big bounce" and the birth of our current universe. These topics are an active research in loop quantum cosmology. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

"Are you talking about a cyclic universe? Expands, contracts, expands, contracts, and so on?"<br />---<br /><br />yep, that's the deal, only the contraction doesn't go all the way to 'nothing' as BigBang would have it, it stops way before that<br /><br />I believe there is mechanism in nature that prevents such collapse (black holes also do not collapse to a point singularity but stop collapsing way before that)<br /><br />and each cycle happens in finite time and everything is remelted during contraction stages when it reaches highest density, so no matter structure or life can survive through that, those cycles repeat themselves and there is no telling for how long the cycling goes on or anything about it, might go on forever but that doesn't mean it happens infinitely long time, time can't be infinite because infinity is not a measure of anything because as I said elsewhere it is not a number or quantity<br /><br />'infinite time' is a misnomer, what is says is 'not finite time' which means 'unbounded time' or 'time period without bounds, i.e., 'undefined time' or 'time not specified'...<br /><br />'infinite time' can be then translated into 'extremely long period of time of undefined duration' if one want's to be charitable to that manner of speaking that people use<br /><br /><font color="yellow">My main point in my previous post is that I don't believe in an eternal universe.</font><br />I have problem with grasping what eternity means, eternal universe means it lasts so long that it is beyond human grasping or comprehension and it is really the same as talking about universe existing for infinitely long time, I suppose my belief in eternal universe is based on the recognition that I truly have no idea how everything that exists could stop existing and somehow vanish into nowhere, so it must go on existing and that's why I would say the universe is eternal which is just another way of saying I don't know how long that cycling lasts, just that it goes on and on a <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[weeman]

<font color="yellow"> time can't be infinite because infinity is not a measure of anything </font><br /><br />That is exactly the way I see it.<br /><br />Even if the universe doesn't contract into a singularity, like you said, it contracts to a point at which no life could survive. So, this would mean that each uninverse still essentially starts from scratch.<br /><br />There are no remains from each civilization left over from the previous universe. So, wouldn't this go back to my original idea? This would then put us back at the same timeline in our existence even if many, many universe' have existed before this one. <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Techies: We do it in the dark. </font></strong></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.</strong><strong>" -Albert Einstein </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

First off, it would depend on the definition of Universe. In my early days as an amateur astronomer. I always thought the Universe encompassed all there was. But in recent decades, with terms like Omniverse and Multiverse being slung around. This implied that scientists had begun theorizing on the possibility of space beyond the Universe we can see.<br /><br />This lead me to hypothesize on our Universe that we can see being galactic cluster collections that bang into existence and eventually fade away.<br /><br />The black void we see when we see space being the infinite void in which there could be infinite numbers of galactic cluster collections banging into and out of existence at any given time. We don't see them because they are farther than optical physics and technology will allow. The red shifting has rendered them invisible in effect.<br /><br />The next nearest galactic cluster collection that we would recognize as another Universe could be 300 billion Ly distant or 28 trillion Ly out under this theory.<br /><br />Now I'm not a professional scientist and I have no direct evidence for this but its just a possibility I came up with that interested me. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

<br /><font color="yellow">Even if the universe doesn't contract into a singularity, like you said, it contracts to a point at which no life could survive. So, this would mean that each uninverse still essentially starts from scratch.<br /><br />There are no remains from each civilization left over from the previous universe. </font><br /><br />I suppose it depends how one sees the time<br /><br />even if every cycle starts from scratch the time doesn't stop during the remelting phase and in that sense the universe is eternaly existing, all the remelting does is to limit the age of cosmic structures and life etc to some maximum finite period of time (of single cycle of oscillation) but matter as such exists eternally across all those cycles of contraction/expansion<br /><br />and yes all the evidence is today pointing to finite time, problem with BB theory is the contraction to singularity which is the result of there being no known mechanism that would break and stop the contraction but I believe we are in the similar position in this regard that physicicsts of old were when they didn't understand why the atom doesn't collapse due to charge attraction and what saved the day from irrationality was the plain evidence of the non collapsed atomic structures, unfortunately we don't have any such evidence in regard to collapse of the universe and that's why we have all that talk about collapse down to singularity - that is all hogwash if you ask me<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vandivx]

<font color="yellow">it would depend on the definition of Universe. In my early days as an amateur astronomer. I always thought the Universe encompassed all there was. But in recent decades, with terms like Omniverse and Multiverse being slung around. This implied that scientists had begun theorizing on the possibility of space beyond the Universe we can see. </font><br /><br />I still stick to that view you had as an 'early day amateur astronomer'<br /><br />point is I see all those speculations as just convenient 'carpet' under which one sweeps all the problems one has<br /><br />I mean if you can't explain or understand something these days you just postulate another dimension or another universe and use that to explain the problem away, that is being done all the time and it brings no real results and excuses people from doing real physics which thus is not advancing<br /><br />I'd rather miss some big discovery of another universe than to have it hinder me now in doing physics in this one, one can always jump on the wagon once it is determined that what we call universe is really just one buble among many out there, as it is though I see such speculation as just a convenient scapegoat<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>