Infinity

[WingedWolf]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I just wanted to hear a scientific reaction to this theory.

My way of understanding infinity is to think of it in terms of perspective. Everything is infinitely large and small. And if you look at the structure of the Universe large and small, it repeats itself. A solar system mirrors the structure of an atom. The star is a nucleus, and the planets are electrons orbiting the nucleus.
I'm not saying that they are the same, but maybe there is a basic structure that repeats itself.
Does this seem possible?

Even if this is possible the level of complexity must be different, but on some level that would mean that their are infinitue universes within every atom and our Universe would just be a tiny piece of something much greater, who knows what, some giant organism, God, or something impossible to imagine. This has always been the story I tell myself to understand infinity. Does anyone know of any similar theories, or the possibility of this concept?

 

[Saiph]

not to knock the wind out of your sails...but atomic structure does not mimic that of the solar system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electron_orbitals.svg

That's the more accurate picture of atomic structure, not the really standard, pre-quantum model you likely have in mind.

 

[WingedWolf]

lol, you get my concept though right? Not that there is a literal structure for all things big and small, but perhaps there are similarities seeing as how everything is made of an infinitely smaller amount of things and is a component in an infinitely larger amount of things.

 

[Fallingstar1971]

How about this.......

Infinities within infinity..........

OR

An infinite Universe containing multiple infinities.......... (PI) for exapmle. Circles using an infinite number within an infinite Universe

OR how about infinity not being enough?

Draw a circle and fill it with an infinite number of lines passing through the center..........

Now draw another circle around the first and extend all your lines from the first circle to the second, and now you can see a case where even the INFINITE number of lines in the first circle leaves sizable gaps in the second circle, so now not even infinity is enough.

Infinities within a larger infinity?

Or perhaps, smaller dimensions contained within a larger one?

Star

 

[GraemeH]

lol, you get my concept though right? Not that there is a literal structure for all things big and small, but perhaps there are similarities seeing as how everything is made of an infinitely smaller amount of things and is a component in an infinitely larger amount of things.

Hi WingedWolf,

You might want to look up fractal geometry as it displays self similarity at all scales of magnification ..... and to really blow your mind, have a look at Fractal Cosmology here:

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

 

[emperor_of_localgroup]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I just wanted to hear a scientific reaction to this theory.

This has always been the story I tell myself to understand infinity. Does anyone know of any similar theories, or the possibility of this concept?

Better yet is to think that 'infinity doesn't exist' to us. It's a mathematical tool used to approximate very large or very small.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electron_orbitals.svg

That's the more accurate picture of atomic structure,

I would not throw away the similarity yet. Most stars are binary stars, in a binary or triple star solar systems, motion of planets can be as complex as electron orbitals at higher energy states.

 

[WingedWolf]

Those are a lot of interesting ideas. The fractal cosmology article was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

 

[darkmatter4brains]

I always thought how the subject of Projective Geometry looks at infinity was pretty neat. Two examples: parallel lines and a circle.

Parallel lines

Picture two straight lines - one is perfectly horizontal, but the other is slightly skewed away from the horizontal and therefore intersects the other at some point. As you rotate the skewed line to align, or make parallel, with your horizontal line, the point of intersection will move further and further out. As the lines approach being parallel, the point of intersection will approach infinity. You could thereby define two parallel lines (lines that are normally viewed as ones that never touch!) as lines which meet at infinity. The really trippy thing is that as you rotate the line through the point at which the lines are parallel, the point of intersection will go out to infinity on one side and come back in from infinity on the other side.

Circles

There's a number of neat ideas about circles, but the easiest one to picture is the following. As you increase the radius of a circle, the curvature at the circumference becomes less and less. It's like looking at the horizon on Earth - hard to tell its spherical. Therefore, as the radius of the circle becomes larger and larger, any one point on the circumference will look less and less curved. Let the radius approach infinity, and the circumference of the circle will look like a straight line. So a circle of infinite radius would become infinitely long straight lines located at infinity.

 

[vastbluesky92]

Parallel lines

Picture two straight lines - one is perfectly horizontal, but the other is slightly skewed away from the horizontal and therefore intersects the other at some point. As you rotate the skewed line to align, or make parallel, with your horizontal line, the point of intersection will move further and further out. As the lines approach being parallel, the point of intersection will approach infinity. You could thereby define two parallel lines (lines that are normally viewed as ones that never touch!) as lines which meet at infinity. The really trippy thing is that as you rotate the line through the point at which the lines are parallel, the point of intersection will go out to infinity on one side and come back in from infinity on the other side.

It would seem to me that saying the lines meet at infinity is exactly the same as saying they never meet, only expressed differently, since infinity is not an actual location. The lines aren't actually getting any closer no matter how far out one goes. Also, while it's true that while you rotate across the parallel the intersection will go from being very far away on one side to very far away on the other, it never "go[es] out to infinity on one side and come back in from infinity on the other." When the lines are parallel the point of intersection as you express it would actually be infinity on both sides of wherever one examines it, never one side but not the other. And anything but exactly parallel and there's a physical point of intersection.

 

[darkmatter4brains]

It would seem to me that saying the lines meet at infinity is exactly the same as saying they never meet.

not if you enjoy really abstract math :lol: