What Is Infinity: Imagine Infinity

Imagine Infinity

Think of infinity. Just think of it. Imagine infinity. Never ending vastness. An emptiness stretching on, leaving nothing behind. Or is it being caged in? Crumpled? Is it closing in? Nope, that isn’t infinity. You can understand it, you can realize it, but you cannot imagine it. Which is why I love this concept. We may never learn much, but I’d love to spend my time trying.

“Infinity” is such a common word. I bet this isn’t the first time you’ve heard it today, but have you thought about it today? We’ve been studying infinity since we’ve had the mental capacity for it, yet we know so little. We know it goes on forever, and there are several forms, some possible, some the opposite. Mathematical infinity exists. On the other hand physical infinity most definitely does not. And we don’t know a lot about either. So little is proven, so much rests in uncertainty. We can’t create it in a lab to test or research it in whatever it’s natural habitat might be. We have to imagine it, or at least try.

Conceptualize Infinity

Maybe you can’t imagine or visualize infinity, neither can I as hard as I try. Instead picture a hotel with an infinite amount of hotel rooms. This is a classic and probably the most common example of infinity. Hotel rooms are filled up as far as the eye can see, reaching to the farthest corners of the sky, sprawling across the universe. Say a large group of people come to reserve a room. You can’t have them go to the top for a room. But, you can have each guest move up. Say you have 35 new customers, so you have everyone move to their room plus 35, and assign the new thirty five a room. Then no one has to listen to never-ending three chord elevator music. To see a more detailed example, I suggest the TedEd by Jeff Dekofsky titled the “Infinite Hotel Paradox”. He gives examples of infinite numbers of cars with infinite numbers of passengers requesting a room.

Distinguish Infinity

I gave the example of mathematical infinity so let’s start with that. It is almost an oxymoron, the concrete rules of mathematics meeting immense infinity. There are numerous types, but I am biased towards math because as we have established I am a nerd. Say we are graphing exponential functions, meaning graphing a curve. If the curve is going towards the x-axis it will never be able to reach. We have a base number also known as the y-intercept multiplied by a decimal at every interval. Meaning it will continue to infinity. Because it will never reach the x-axis as the amount it curves by that gets smaller constantly, as seen below. One reason you can’t imagine infinity is because physical infinity by definition doesn’t exist. Thus, we can’t see infinity. By this I mean you can’t hold anything of which there is an infinite amount of. At least not literally. Figuratively, you hold an infinite amount of options. I have an infinite amount of ways to write this essay. You have an infinite amount of possibilities for actions right now. For example, you could get up, walk in a circle, do ten jumping jacks and stand on your head. You could also do an infinite list of other things.

For example try this at home. Stand somewhere in a room directly facing a wall. Then take a step and with the next step go half the distance of the previous step and continue on. The graph demonstrates your distance to the wall. Spoiler alert: you will never reach the other wall.

Theorize Infinity

Space, our miraculous cluster of dust appears to be growing marginally in size. Constant fluctuations are surrounding us. As much as I´d like to think otherwise, nothing we know or we will ever know will be stable. Our universe is constantly amplifying and deflating. To learn more about this and how it’s proven I suggest the article The Multiverse Is Inevitable, And We're Living In It by Ethan Siegel on Forbes.com. I find it to be complicated but has extremely helpful graphics. With a couple sessions of rereading it will make complete sense.

Next, I would like to address that the multiverse is not a theory. Theories answer questions. Therefore this is a theoretical prediction. There is an infinite amount of ways to interpret the multiverse theory. There is the basic acknowledgment that we have evidence that we aren’t in the only universe. Our universe has been cooling since the big bang. The explosion that had too much vivid color. Too many fiery explosions to handle sound, our earthly civilian words cannot describe the ungodly explosion of existence as we know it. A silent action movie of every villain´s plans executed in unison void of sound. Savoring rubber scent hanging in the air. Like a million balloons popping and exposing their scent. Yet the temperature is the same throughout space so it can’t be the only thing cooling. Meaning there have been other big bangs out there. If our universe popped into existence. Why couldn’t others?

There is also what is the science fiction version in my opinion. Some people believe that every action you have creates an infinite amount of new universes. In those new universes, every action creates an infinite amount of universes. As I said earlier every option you face has an infinite amount of possible actions or solutions. Followers believe that every possible action plays out in a universe. Meaning we will have an infinite amount of universes. Those examples are very extreme so, people subscribe to any theory in between as well. We have no clear evidence of this. Then again, how could we?

Review Infinity

There are so many ways to view or rather not view infinity. Even the experts can’t imagine infinity. So instead spend your time imagining something much more practical. Maybe something productive or instead imagine me, sitting here typing about the boundless infinity of infinity, with my cat. Using an entirely non-infinite dust ridden Stephen Hawking book, tattered edges sticking together, each turn forcing me to inhale a cloud of stale book dust to portray infinity. Or perhaps you would like to attempt imagining infinity, good luck.

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