Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Subhanallah

An intriguing question is whether infinity exists in our physical universe: Are there an infinite number of stars? Does the universe have infinite volume? Does space "go on forever"? This is an important open question of cosmology. Note that the question of being infinite is logically separate from the question of having boundaries. The two-dimensional surface of the Earth, for example, is finite, yet has no edge. By travelling in a straight line one will eventually return to the exact spot one started from. The universe, at least in principle, might have a similar topology; if one travelled in a straight line through the universe perhaps one would eventually revisit one's starting point. If, however, the universe is ever expanding, and one's means of transport could not travel faster than this rate of expansion, then conceivably one would never return to one's starting point, even on an infinite time scale, since the starting point would be receding away even as one travels toward it.

-Georg Cantor equated the Absolute Infinite with God.-

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