Researching Infinity
A question [since deleted] posted on the Neil deGrasse Tyson Facebook Group had attracted over 500 comments and (without having read all 500) none I saw seemed to actually try to answer it. I had a go based on popular sciene (as I've digested it).
The question, as I remember it, was Why isn't more research being done into infinity, which is really important in understanding the universe?
It also talked of the nature the universe relating linked to the concept of infinity.
tl/dr version of my response: all the research of all hard sciences and much philosophical research too is really tackling infinity. (Much of human religion, before that started and since, has poked at the question using non-scientific approaches, some of those lead to the development of sciences, as various histories of particular scientific fields or advances show.)
Infinity is just that big a subject.
Infinity is a mathematical concept. It is used about features of the Universe we've observed or theorised because they are bigger than we can practically describe (practical as in usable in applied maths - for now, as far as I know). [Hoping a mathematician can help out here.]
On the physical and multidimensional properties and history of the universe, there is plenty of research being done but the question is huge and each study can only chip away a tiny bit at the task of getting and assessing more data. Yesterday's satellite launch is another new step in getting data to work with.
This isn't surprising when you remember again that the universe is currently thought [AFAIK] to be infinite in time and space .*
In terms of my personal understanding, which is pretty limited, beyond the edges of the universe - the furthest points of matter and energy within the dimensions - there is a nothingness.
You can't define a nothingness except through philosophy or in linguistic terms - the only definitions are tied to matter and energy You can say this box of vacuum is a box of nothing but the nothing is only describeable in terms of the box which defines its space. Or in terms of the matter and energy (it not having them). So is the nothing past the last matter/energy/time in the universe an edge or an endlessness, or something beyond?
[This wasn't something asked but in my personal mental vision of how things are, that envelope of the universe and the dimensional spaces between parallel universes - which are now considered a little firmer their in physics than they were a few years ago - is one of the places I see space for the divine, or faith. Fitting around and through scientific description of the universe. Which would also suit atheists as technically it says that God is nothing (at least in part). When I discussed this with a theoretical physicist friend years ago he couldn't fault it but said he couldn't see that it gave any divinity a role relevant to science or the physical world we can know of. I said "Exactly. Those aren't relevant to faith or the divine."**]
Sorry this isn't brief. It's as concise as I can manage when covering the infinite (and rather better than I expected to do, considering).
*Time itself is one of the many literal and mathematical dimensions to be studied to answer your question Time - certainly linear time- may turn out be a construct of human perception rather than an objective property of the Universe. If that is proved (there are a lot if physics headlines I've seen tending that way) then talking about the beginning and ending of the universe becomes tricky because without linear time what is a beginning or an ending?
**Talking about "space" when writing of "between parallel dimensions" or "beyond the matter/energy/time of the universe" is technically incorrect because space is, by definition place, dimension. There is no linguistic term I know of that I could use instead. We have a symbol I know for infinity but I haven't come across a symbolic representation for nothing. (0 is a number with a value of -1+1.)
Because "past" and "beyond" *also "between" are also words tied to dimensional space, using them about the "edges" of the universe and "between dimensions" falls into the same technical trap. We can only use metaphors as we literally don't have the language. (Mathematicians or physicists or philosophy academics might, or at least some symbols - ask them.)
[On the personal faith side, I left out that, as between subatomic particles there is space with no particles and - I think but could be wrong - sometimes no energy- the divine truly has space to exist within us and all things and creatures too. The omnipresent divine.
I don't think the divine is nothingness, but that there is plenty if nothingness for the divine to dwell in].
Keep asking questions, keep exploring the universe and infinity.
Best wishes for the season and beyond.
The question, as I remember it, was Why isn't more research being done into infinity, which is really important in understanding the universe?
It also talked of the nature the universe relating linked to the concept of infinity.
tl/dr version of my response: all the research of all hard sciences and much philosophical research too is really tackling infinity. (Much of human religion, before that started and since, has poked at the question using non-scientific approaches, some of those lead to the development of sciences, as various histories of particular scientific fields or advances show.)
Infinity is just that big a subject.
Infinity is a mathematical concept. It is used about features of the Universe we've observed or theorised because they are bigger than we can practically describe (practical as in usable in applied maths - for now, as far as I know). [Hoping a mathematician can help out here.]
On the physical and multidimensional properties and history of the universe, there is plenty of research being done but the question is huge and each study can only chip away a tiny bit at the task of getting and assessing more data. Yesterday's satellite launch is another new step in getting data to work with.
This isn't surprising when you remember again that the universe is currently thought [AFAIK] to be infinite in time and space .*
In terms of my personal understanding, which is pretty limited, beyond the edges of the universe - the furthest points of matter and energy within the dimensions - there is a nothingness.
You can't define a nothingness except through philosophy or in linguistic terms - the only definitions are tied to matter and energy You can say this box of vacuum is a box of nothing but the nothing is only describeable in terms of the box which defines its space. Or in terms of the matter and energy (it not having them). So is the nothing past the last matter/energy/time in the universe an edge or an endlessness, or something beyond?
[This wasn't something asked but in my personal mental vision of how things are, that envelope of the universe and the dimensional spaces between parallel universes - which are now considered a little firmer their in physics than they were a few years ago - is one of the places I see space for the divine, or faith. Fitting around and through scientific description of the universe. Which would also suit atheists as technically it says that God is nothing (at least in part). When I discussed this with a theoretical physicist friend years ago he couldn't fault it but said he couldn't see that it gave any divinity a role relevant to science or the physical world we can know of. I said "Exactly. Those aren't relevant to faith or the divine."**]
Sorry this isn't brief. It's as concise as I can manage when covering the infinite (and rather better than I expected to do, considering).
*Time itself is one of the many literal and mathematical dimensions to be studied to answer your question Time - certainly linear time- may turn out be a construct of human perception rather than an objective property of the Universe. If that is proved (there are a lot if physics headlines I've seen tending that way) then talking about the beginning and ending of the universe becomes tricky because without linear time what is a beginning or an ending?
**Talking about "space" when writing of "between parallel dimensions" or "beyond the matter/energy/time of the universe" is technically incorrect because space is, by definition place, dimension. There is no linguistic term I know of that I could use instead. We have a symbol I know for infinity but I haven't come across a symbolic representation for nothing. (0 is a number with a value of -1+1.)
Because "past" and "beyond" *also "between" are also words tied to dimensional space, using them about the "edges" of the universe and "between dimensions" falls into the same technical trap. We can only use metaphors as we literally don't have the language. (Mathematicians or physicists or philosophy academics might, or at least some symbols - ask them.)
[On the personal faith side, I left out that, as between subatomic particles there is space with no particles and - I think but could be wrong - sometimes no energy- the divine truly has space to exist within us and all things and creatures too. The omnipresent divine.
I don't think the divine is nothingness, but that there is plenty if nothingness for the divine to dwell in].
Keep asking questions, keep exploring the universe and infinity.
Best wishes for the season and beyond.