Infinity

[FoxholeAthiest]

I was think earlier about LHC today and I was wondering if there will always be a smaller and more fundamental particle at the quantum level and if this is thecase , could the term infinitely small be used. Won't something discovered always still be made of something else?... I realize I'm putting this way to simply but I just wanted to get some thoughts on this anything related that someone here finds interesting. Thank you

 

[origin]

The quark is the smallest or fundemental particle according to the standard model of particle physics.

 

[FoxholeAthiest]

The quark is the smallest or fundemental particle according to the standard model of particle physics.

Ok, but what is a quark made of and if the find a more fundamental particle than a quark is it possible that there will be a more fundamental particle than that one? and so on and so on...... I am a layperson in the field of quantum physics so bear with me....I think I get the "big" picture though

 

[kelvinzero]

It does seem to be a problem whenever someone suggests a fundamental particle, doesnt it. I mean there has to be a reason for quarks, doesnt there?

We may not be talking about particles at all. String theory is popular. But is it possible to have a theory that does not just open a deeper mystery? What would such a theory even look like?

have a look at the sort of weird abstract stuff people are actually exploring:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Unif ... d_theories

 

[ArcCentral]

All fundamental entities will necessarily be made of nothing. I.E fundamental entities will have no parts.

We are then left with only the form of the entities to work things out, and after all is said and done, the form itself will turn out to be made of nothing also. I.E Not a physical entity.

This is to be expected with a universe that had a beginning, for this requires a universe made of nothing.

The alternative is that all things will be composed of smaller things infinitely, but this also implies that the universe is composed of nothing.

 

[CommonMan]

All fundamental entities will necessarily be made of nothing. I.E fundamental entities will have no parts.

We are then left with only the form of the entities to work things out, and after all is said and done, the form itself will turn out to be made of nothing also. I.E Not a physical entity.

This is to be expected with a universe that had a beginning, for this requires a universe made of nothing.

The alternative is that all things will be composed of smaller things infinitely, but this also implies that the universe is composed of nothing.

You said a lot, but I’m afraid I got nothing out of it.
There is another forum with very smart people that talk about this stuff.
Try out http://www.physicsforums.com/

 

[ArcCentral]

All fundamental entities will necessarily be made of nothing. I.E fundamental entities will have no parts.

We are then left with only the form of the entities to work things out, and after all is said and done, the form itself will turn out to be made of nothing also. I.E Not a physical entity.

This is to be expected with a universe that had a beginning, for this requires a universe made of nothing.

The alternative is that all things will be composed of smaller things infinitely, but this also implies that the universe is composed of nothing.

You said a lot, but I’m afraid I got nothing out of it.
There is another forum with very smart people that talk about this stuff.
Try out http://www.physicsforums.com/

Actually, they don't discuss nothing at that forum. It's taboo.
Thusly, their understanding has much to be desired.
In the quantum world, form is the antithesis of content, where content is a big fat zero. In other words, a waveform is the reality of that which is not real. We need but refer to quantifiable concepts in this world to find answers, and not to the qualitative composition, as it will provide no number other than zero.

In our universe, there are only ones, one at a time, where time is the nothing ones are composed of.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Unfortunately, ArcCentral, you seem to be far too good at using a bunch of words and saying nothing.

 

[OleNewt]

if this is thecase , could the term infinitely small be used.

infinitesimally--> smaller without limit

 

[ArcCentral]

Unfortunately, ArcCentral, you seem to be far too good at using a bunch of words and saying nothing.

As opposed to you having nothing germane to say about the subject? At least I have my feet in the fire, while you on the other hand crawl into a ball and suck on your thumb. Your emotional post accomplishes nothing, other than derailing the thread, perhaps that is your intention. Goodness knows what goes on in a childlike mind.

Do we really need to play this game of titfortat?

Have we had this discussion before?

 

[MeteorWayne]

You think this makes some kind of sense?

"Actually, they don't discuss nothing at that forum. It's taboo.
Thusly, their understanding has much to be desired.
In the quantum world, form is the antithesis of content, where content is a big fat zero. In other words, a waveform is the reality of that which is not real. We need but refer to quantifiable concepts in this world to find answers, and not to the qualitative composition, as it will provide no number other than zero.

In our universe, there are only ones, one at a time, where time is the nothing ones are composed of."

It's meaningless word salad gibberish!!!

 

[coorpz]

 

[ArcCentral]

You think this makes some kind of sense?

"Actually, they don't discuss nothing at that forum. It's taboo.
Thusly, their understanding has much to be desired.
In the quantum world, form is the antithesis of content, where content is a big fat zero. In other words, a waveform is the reality of that which is not real. We need but refer to quantifiable concepts in this world to find answers, and not to the qualitative composition, as it will provide no number other than zero.

In our universe, there are only ones, one at a time, where time is the nothing ones are composed of."

It's meaningless word salad gibberish!!!

As much as I had to laugh at it myself, yes it does make sense. I chuckled my way through the whole typing of it. If you don't understand it, thats fine, as it is to be expected from an emotional being. One might ask what you are doing in this thread, if you don't purpose to put a stake in it, in other words, wheres your stuff, or is it that you don't have any idea whatsoever? You most certainly have my acquiesce, as if you need it, to put up a reply to the initial post. So volley up, or grab some bench as someone not ready for prime time, but please, cut the crap with the armchair quarterbacking, as it is the epitome of word salad.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I'm in this thread because it's the Physics forum, and I am a moderator for it. I read every post made in it.

When threads crash into the woods, I can move them to The Unexplained if needed. Your posts have made that something to consider.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Infinite regression and progression is an old idea. We still don't know, but supposedly, quarks are as small as it can get. TMK, that's what string theory is trying to figure out. That everything is made of tiny, vibrating strings. But we really don't know.

And, they say that nothing can be shorter than a Planck length, which is someting like -10 gazillionth of a micron.

OP- Like you, my "common sense" tells me that quarks must be composed of something smaller still. But 'common sense' is usually uncommon, and rarely sensible. For example, common sense told people for untold ages that the earth was flat and didn't move, or that nothing can exist that can't be seen.

 

[darkmatter4brains]

That something is made of parts, that are in turn made of smaller parts, is all part of the mechanistic, positivistic paradigm of thought that physics has operated under for some time now. It worked great for a while, but when you start running into dead ends and infinite regressions under that logic that seem to make no sense, to me that's a hint that it's time for a paradigm shift. I believe that some of the current phenomena in physics (quantum entanglement, wave/particle duality, an electron being in more than one place at a time ala double-slit experiment, etc.) that seem so strange, seem so only because we are looking at them the wrong way.

We need somebody revolutionary (even more so than Einstein) to think of something new to help us move forward. I personally believe these new ideas will involve higher dimensions. String theory, M theory, and others do include this, but I think the bulk of these theories are still too trapped under the current mechanistic paradigm and in the end will end up being "wrong".

If we do indeed need a paradigm shift in our thinking, it's very possible that the LHC will force it upon us. Or, it will confirm current theories, which will mean I'm full of cr.... :lol:

 

[Gravity_Ray]

I strongly believe that the universe is made up of infinitely small and infinitely large, but due to our scale we are only limited to ever understand a certain range.

To all intents and purposes for our scale a Fermion is the smallest unit of matter (twin to a Boson for energy) and our universe is the largest unit of matter. What is beyond these in each direction is not important as it can not be grasped or viewed or understood at our current scale.

There is plenty in physics for us to understand within these two brackets that we don’t need to stress what is beyond. For now beyond in each direction is simply God.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

IThere is plenty in physics for us to understand within these two brackets that we don’t need to stress what is beyond.

Kirk- But Spock, we've- got- to know!

 

[dryson]

Here is an interesting aspect to infinity. It revolves around the sinusoidal wavelength. The sinusoidal wavelength oscillates like any other normal wavelength but then crumples up like it has ran into something then it becomes flat and dies out. But does the sinusoidal really die out? When the wavelength goes flat where does the end of the wavelength end up at? Does it end up at the other side of the Universe and then re-oscillate into the reverse of it's regular wavelength? Does it cross into another Universe entirely where gravity may be present and in abundance?

 

[Astro_Robert]

Why do we have to have an infinite number of infinitely small particles making up the infinity of things? I thought modern physics was about renormalizing the infinities to get usefull answers. Philosophically I will be much happier with a final fundamental something than with infinite infinities, and hopefully the Plank Length will be a lower bound on size and keep us from realizing them.

These infinities create auwfull paradoxes: Inifinite Temperature and Density at the Big Bang spread out over a less than infinitie (or even infinite) volume of space making up the universe should/could still be infinite. However, we do not observe infinite temperature/density today. (ie infinity divided by less than infinity is always infinity).

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Why do we have to have an infinite number of infinitely small particles making up the infinity of things? I thought modern physics was about renormalizing the infinities to get usefull answers.

What? What do you mean by "renormalizing the infinities"?

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

Why do we have to have an infinite number of infinitely small particles making up the infinity of things? I thought modern physics was about renormalizing the infinities to get usefull answers.

What? What do you mean by "renormalizing the infinities"?

Listen, I have a great homemade salad dressing that tosses well with words...

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

The early formulators of QED and other quantum field theories were, as a rule, dissatisfied with this state of affairs. It seemed illegitimate to do something tantamount to subtracting infinities from infinities to get finite answers.

Dirac's criticism was the most persistent. As late as 1975, he was saying:[2]

Most physicists are very satisfied with the situation. They say: 'Quantum electrodynamics is a good theory and we do not have to worry about it any more.' I must say that I am very dissatisfied with the situation, because this so-called 'good theory' does involve neglecting infinities which appear in its equations, neglecting them in an arbitrary way. This is just not sensible mathematics. Sensible mathematics involves neglecting a quantity when it is small - not neglecting it just because it is infinitely great and you do not want it!


Another important critic was Feynman. Despite his crucial role in the development of quantum electrodynamics, he wrote the following in 1985:[3]

The shell game that we play ... is technically called 'renormalization'. But no matter how clever the word, it is still what I would call a dippy process! Having to resort to such hocus-pocus has prevented us from proving that the theory of quantum electrodynamics is mathematically self-consistent. It's surprising that the theory still hasn't been proved self-consistent one way or the other by now; I suspect that renormalization is not mathematically legitimate.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Mac- Thanks for the info. Detailed physics, of course, isn't my cup of tea.

 

[Floridian]

Infinite regression and progression is an old idea. We still don't know, but supposedly, quarks are as small as it can get. TMK, that's what string theory is trying to figure out. That everything is made of tiny, vibrating strings. But we really don't know.

And, they say that nothing can be shorter than a Planck length, which is someting like -10 gazillionth of a micron.

OP- Like you, my "common sense" tells me that quarks must be composed of something smaller still. But 'common sense' is usually uncommon, and rarely sensible. For example, common sense told people for untold ages that the earth was flat and didn't move, or that nothing can exist that can't be seen.

Lol another religion basher contradicting himself. Thank you for bringing up the over-used world is flat analogy, even though proper examination of scripture

Isaiah 40:22: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth,” or as other translations say, “the globe of the earth” (Douay), “the round earth.” (Moffatt)

Please don't consider the Catholic church Christian, because it wasn't and isn't. All are equal before the foot of the cross... so lets make a Pope and worship him, then pray to saints...

Anyways, maybe you had typo. "Nothing can exist that can't be seen". Wrong, thats what people reference today when they bash religion. Thats the problem with athiests, maybe you arn't athiest, even though today they willingly believe in dark matter and dark energy. People back in the day who believed the Earth was flat also believed in an invisible spiritual dimension and a God they couldn't see, thats where faith comes in. The same faith athiests have for dark matter and dark energy, except religion isn't as ridiculous as those two are.


The laws of physics dictate that matter cannot be created or destroy and that something cannot come from nothing. The person who says something can come from nothing clearly believes these laws are wrong. I wonder what evidence he has for this claim, because the evidence points to the contrary. Something from nothing it not only impossible, it is illogical. The law of cause and effect proves itself, everything must have a cause.

Infinity cannot come from nothing, this is just as "crazy" if not more crazy than believing in a God.