Quote:
Originally posted by ratbastid
Nope.
Hypothesis: The universe is infinite.
It's widely believed to be true in cosmological circles. But nobody's actually been out there in the universe far enough away to test it. So it's still only a hypothesis, and not a fact.
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A good point, but it's funny to think of an astronaut with a tape measure going out and trying to measure infinity. It reminds me of in hitchhiker's guide when Zaphod's like, "Wow, that's pretty vast but it's still not infinite." I laughed a good deal at that.
Now that I've A.D.D.ed enough I'll try to respond to your point, or I would have except that cliche seems to have hit all my points already, so I'll just quote him.
Quote:
Originally posted by cliche
shrubbery - there's a dfference between the universe being infinite, and it containing an infinite amount of matter (ie planets). Plus, if you're defining 'infinite size' by 'you can keep going forever without hitting an edge', imagine that it might be curved in another dimension - like an ant wandering on the surface of a football.
So I find fault with your argument, to be honest:
1) is the universe infinite?
2) you've jumped from infinite space to infinite matter
3) if something is infinite, must it all be different?
To understand (3) - if I tell you that the decimal expansion of 1/3 has an infinite number of digits; I could use the same logic you've just used to say that it must contain every digit known to man, and every possible sequence of numbers... Just because it's infinite doesn't mean it is infinitely variable.
Having said all that, you could well be right (see anything on Possible Worlds. The Worlds might not be in our universe - depends how you define universe to be honest - but could be out there!)
And Douglas Adams is wonderful...
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(The Douglas Adams is wonderful part is the most important part.)