I believe there’s an absolute infinity.
🔔 SHAME 🔔
Submitted 11 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
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Comments
Matriks404@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Infinity is a concept that we made up for the same of explaining some math. Prove me wrong.
kogasa@programming.dev 11 months ago
I dunno about proving you wrong, but the fact that you can comfortably say there is no largest natural number is kind of a belief in infinity
Jax@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
That seems more like an engine limitation than proof of infinity, to me anyway.
superfes@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Explain?
Ephera@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
Might be this?
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
these are non-sensical
Transfinite algebra is a widely-accepted aspect of mathematics.
StructuredPair@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I mean, the Casimir effect was initially derived as the result of two infinite values having a finite difference.
superfes@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Bonkers
turkalino@lemmy.yachts 11 months ago
There are different kinds of infinity
“Countably infinite” means an infinitely-large set of numbers that could be generated by infinitely following an algorithm with a finite number of steps. For example, integers/whole numbers are countably infinite because they could be generated by following this simple algorithm:
- Start with the number 1
- Add 1 to your number
- Repeat step 2
The set of real numbers, on the other hand, is uncountably infinite because you can have an infinite number of digits after the decimal place. You can’t define a finite generation algorithm like the one above simply because any precision you use wouldn’t cover the full range. In other words, if you wanted to modify the above algorithm, and chose 0.1 as your starting number, your algorithm would miss 0.01. If you chose to start at 0.01, you would miss 0.001, and so on
weker01@feddit.de 11 months ago
That is the way it is often taught but actually both sets are infinite that is have no ends or in other words are not bounded.
The thing that is confusing to understand is that the question how many there are and how much there is diverges at infinity.
Our intuition (as finite beings) is broken here. Both sets are infinite but in one is more than in the other. That does not make one set more infinite than the other. You cannot be more unending than to literally have no end.
Zoldyck@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Which theory is the most plausible?
urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
I’m not sure anyone has really provided a complete explanation of what is the difference between working with an absolute infinity and the way we do math normally in science and such.
Basically, no one has found the idea of using an absolute infinity to explain the world to be better than the way we deal with infinity in college courses. In college, you run across the idea that some infinite sets are larger than others (countable numbers vs uncountable).
Of course, an infinite set makes sense in math, and has practical uses in the sciences, but nothing can truly be demonstrated to be unending. Another poster put it nicely - infinity is a direction, not a destination.
I recommend this video How to count past infinity by Vsauce about (20 minutes long). It is closer to entertainment than a lecture but its pretty good. I’m only an undergrad math major but I haven’t found any real problems with this video (though, he does start talking about ordinal numbers which aren’t terribly useful to anyone that I know of, yet, except for some really complicated number theory stuff cryptographers might use, don’t ask me. cryptographers are basically wizards imho).
xia@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
IMO? That infinity is just a concept to occupy professional thinkers that breaks every construct wherein it’s applied.
Zoldyck@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Where and how does it end? Both infinity and non-infinity seem strange to me.
kogasa@programming.dev 11 months ago
The question doesn’t make sense, there are many things which have an infinite quality (like infinite cardinality) or are called infinite/infinity (like infinite cardinals and ordinals). They’re not contradictory. They coexist the same as all finite things do.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There is currently no way to observe any of this empirically, so the question is pretty much moot. It’s speculation either way.
Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
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NielsBohron@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I misread that as “absolute immunity” and thought you had posted to the wrong community.
The meme works just as well, “absolute immunity” is just more topical and political than mathematical
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 11 months ago
“A number is how far along you are on your journey, infinity is the horizon you journey towards.” - Some guy I met in a pub
lseif@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
was that guy Socrates or perhaps Einstein
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No, it was a philosophy PhD student on his 2nd bottle of tequila apparently.