Proof Infinity is Impossible

[Steve3007]

The bomb is small yet it destroys an entire city. So it can't just be the matter in the bomb that is doing this.

Why not? The destructive potential of a moving object (a piece of matter) that hits another object (another piece of matter) is related to its speed and its mass (to its momentum and kinetic energy), right? The faster the object, the more its destructive potential. The more massive the object, the more its destructive potential. So, no matter how little mass the original bomb contains, for any level of destruction you care to imagine there is a speed for the fragments of that bomb that will do it. Small mass? No problem. Just increase the speed.

Regardless of whether we think that is what is actually happening in the case of an H bomb, we can imagine a small bomb whose explosion consists only of fast moving bits of matter with arbitrarily large destructive potential, can't we?

Pick your battles!

[Sculptor1]

There is one type of infinity.

And you know this how?

It's called a dictionary. Use one!

An expression used where the quantity is unknown.

Unkown quantity? Where did you get this one?

No, not "unkown", unknown.

There can be no case for the other use of the world which means endless in measure, as this is impossible.

And you know this how?

Because there are limits everywhere. Since some space is taken up with things then no other thing can be infinite in quantity.
It is not brain science.

[devans99]

So the sun then, its made of hydrogen which it converts to helium with nuclear fusion - matter is converted into photons and neutrinos.

Those photons arrive on earth and power photosynthesis in plants.

We can detect these photons by the difference between day and night.

Terrapin - why are we going through this?

We're going through this because you're claiming things that, although sometimes they're popular or are even conventional wisdom in their milieu, are really incoherent twaddle ontologically.

So what do you take to be observational evidence that photons are "just energy" and are not matter in motion?

I think that photons cannot be matter - if they were matter, the matter must come from the sun - and the sun has been around for billions of years. If the sun was spitting out matter in all directions, it would have shrunk to size zero by now.

But if it is spitting out energy, that makes more sense: E=mc^2 gives us masses of energy for a little matter, so the shinning of the sun is sustainable over billions of years in this model.

Also, if you look at a light bulb, the glass would seem to prevent matter exiting from it - yet light comes out of it - so light must be something other than matter - IE energy - photons - that can pass between the gaps in the molecules of the glass. Matter could not do that.

[devans99]

The bomb is small yet it destroys an entire city. So it can't just be the matter in the bomb that is doing this.

Why not? The destructive potential of a moving object (a piece of matter) that hits another object (another piece of matter) is related to its speed and its mass (to its momentum and kinetic energy), right? The faster the object, the more its destructive potential. The more massive the object, the more its destructive potential. So, no matter how little mass the original bomb contains, for any level of destruction you care to imagine there is a speed for the fragments of that bomb that will do it. Small mass? No problem. Just increase the speed.

Regardless of whether we think that is what is actually happening in the case of an H bomb, we can imagine a small bomb whose explosion consists only of fast moving bits of matter with arbitrarily large destructive potential, can't we?

Pick your battles!

The atoms of matter from the bomb explosion would fly off in all directions at high velocity. The effect would be to perforate rather than destroy the city. So clearly releases of massive amounts of energy must be involved, else the city would not be destroyed.

[Terrapin Station]

We're going through this because you're claiming things that, although sometimes they're popular or are even conventional wisdom in their milieu, are really incoherent twaddle ontologically.

So what do you take to be observational evidence that photons are "just energy" and are not matter in motion?

I think that photons cannot be matter - if they were matter, the matter must come from the sun - and the sun has been around for billions of years. If the sun was spitting out matter in all directions, it would have shrunk to size zero by now.

But if it is spitting out energy, that makes more sense: E=mc^2 gives us masses of energy for a little matter, so the shinning of the sun is sustainable over billions of years in this model.

Also, if you look at a light bulb, the glass would seem to prevent matter exiting from it - yet light comes out of it - so light must be something other than matter - IE energy - photons - that can pass between the gaps in the molecules of the glass. Matter could not do that.

Theoretical musings are not the same thing as "observational evidence" are they?

[devans99]

I think that photons cannot be matter - if they were matter, the matter must come from the sun - and the sun has been around for billions of years. If the sun was spitting out matter in all directions, it would have shrunk to size zero by now.

But if it is spitting out energy, that makes more sense: E=mc^2 gives us masses of energy for a little matter, so the shinning of the sun is sustainable over billions of years in this model.

Also, if you look at a light bulb, the glass would seem to prevent matter exiting from it - yet light comes out of it - so light must be something other than matter - IE energy - photons - that can pass between the gaps in the molecules of the glass. Matter could not do that.

Theoretical musings are not the same thing as "observational evidence" are they?

I have observed a light bulb!

I think when it comes down to it, matter is energy. What exactly is a quark? I imagine it as a spread out wave of energy that collapses to a point (probably to a very small wave) when measured.

Think about another matter particle - the electron. When it jumps from a higher energy orbit to a lower energy orbit, it emits a photon. So it seems the matter particle (the electron) is made of energy, and it loses some of that energy - resulting in the production of a photon.

[Sculptor1]

Theoretical musings are not the same thing as "observational evidence" are they?

I have observed a light bulb!

I think when it comes down to it, matter is energy.

This sort of obfuscation is not helpful.
Philosophy is very good at attracting people that want to say that black is white and white is back. Beware of the words of Douglas Adams who warns that one man that did that gets run over whilst walking across the nearest Zebra Crossing.
There are very good reasons we have different words for matter and energy, as they do different things, and we understand our world by using this distinction, amongst others. Hiroshima was the first city to learn that you can change a small amount of matter into a rather a lot of energy. But that does not change the fact that energy is not matter. And there are classes of energy that cannot be derived from deleting any amount of matter however small.
[/quote]
What exactly is a quark? I imagine it as a spread out wave of energy that collapses to a point (probably to a very small wave) when measured.
[/quote]
This might be of some interest. But the thread is about the impossibility of determining the existence of the infinite. A simple matter I would have thought. I'm a little puzzled why the answer has not been uncovered in 140 posts.

Think about another matter particle - the electron. When it jumps from a higher energy orbit to a lower energy orbit, it emits a photon. So it seems the matter particle (the electron) is made of energy, and it loses some of that energy - resulting in the production of a photon.

Yet the electron is not matter. The matter is in the nucleus. The electron is a charge. Another useful distinction.

[Atla]

It's called a dictionary. Use one!

Actually dictionaries don't claim that there is only one kind of infinity. Even in maths we have several.

Because there are limits everywhere. Since some space is taken up with things then no other thing can be infinite in quantity.
It is not brain science.

You are omniscient? Unfortunately we mortals can't tell whether or not the world goes on forever.

[Sculptor1]

It's called a dictionary. Use one!

Actually dictionaries don't claim that there is only one kind of infinity. Even in maths we have several.

God help - I said there were two.
Get a life!

Because there are limits everywhere. Since some space is taken up with things then no other thing can be infinite in quantity.
It is not brain science.

You are omniscient? Unfortunately we mortals can't tell whether or not the world goes on forever.

Luckily I do not need to be omniscient, to deny infinity. You have to be omniscient to claim it is a valid concept.

[Atla]

God help - I said there were two.
Get a life!

You said there is only one kind of actual infinity because the other one is impossible.
I've never heard "infinite" as a synonim for "unknown" or seen that in a dictionary by the way.

Luckily I do not need to be omniscient, to deny infinity. You have to be omniscient to claim it is a valid concept.

Actually, you need to be pretty omniscient to be able to tell that the world doesn't go on forever.

[Terrapin Station]

I have observed a light bulb!

Right. And obviously light bulbs aren't just energy.

I think when it comes down to it, matter is energy.

I don't know why you'd think that, because it's incoherent.

What exactly is a quark?

At this point in time, it's primarily a mathematical construction.

I imagine it as a spread out wave of energy

You can't have waves or energy without having matter to exhibit the wave or energy.

that collapses to a point (probably to a very small wave) when measured.

Points aren't real. They're mathematical fictions.

Think about another matter particle - the electron. When it jumps from a higher energy orbit to a lower energy orbit, it emits a photon. So it seems the matter particle (the electron) is made of energy, and it loses some of that energy - resulting in the production of a photon.

And the observational evidence that a photon is just energy is? (The answer is "There is no observational evidence of that, because it's just a nonsensical idea fueled by a mathematics fetish.)

[Sculptor1]

God help - I said there were two.
Get a life!

You said there is only one kind of actual infinity because the other one is impossible.
I've never heard "infinite" as a synonim for "unknown" or seen that in a dictionary by the way.

Luckily I do not need to be omniscient, to deny infinity. You have to be omniscient to claim it is a valid concept.

Actually, you need to be pretty omniscient to be able to tell that the world doesn't go on forever.

All you need is science to know that the universe had a beginning, and eyes to see that it has limits.

[Steve3007]

The atoms of matter from the bomb explosion would fly off in all directions at high velocity. The effect would be to perforate rather than destroy the city...

How about this: The atoms are really sticky and they pull lots of stuff with them as they pass ....
No. Just kidding. Let's leave that there eh.

Consider this instead:

Do you have a theory as to why patterns of colour, light and dark pass across your retina? What theories have people had about that in the past? What theories do people have now? What criteria might you use to decide which theory most accurately describes what actually happens?

If for nothing else, it's interesting to see how thinking on the subject has developed. From something coming out of the eye ("emission theory" - Empedocles, Plato et al) to something going into the eye. On something going into the eye: From "corpuscular" theories of light, to wave theories, and on to more modern theories. Do we think that there's been a progression in terms of more accurately describing what actually happens since the days of emission theories and corpuscular theories? I do.

[Atla]

All you need is science to know that the universe had a beginning, and eyes to see that it has limits.

That's very unscientific (as we know).

In science, the current mainstream view is that we can't see past the Big Bang singularity. Maybe the universe started back then, maybe not.

In science, the current mainstream view is that we can't see what's beyond the observable universe. Maybe our universe goes on forever, maybe not.
We also can't see "across" a multiverse, if case there is a multiverse. Maybe the world extends infinitely across a multiverse, maybe not.

[Sculptor1]

All you need is science to know that the universe had a beginning, and eyes to see that it has limits.

That's very unscientific (as we know).

Is that the ROYAL "WE"?
LOL
Science says it. Eat it up!

In science, the current mainstream view is that we can't see past the Big Bang singularity. Maybe the universe started back then, maybe not.

Science says we can see the exact limit of the BB. And that the Universe is expanding in all directions from all points. That is definitively NOT infinite. If the universe were infinite then it could not exapand.

In science, the current mainstream view is that we can't see what's beyond the observable universe. Maybe our universe goes on forever, maybe not.
We also can't see "across" a multiverse, if case there is a multiverse. Maybe the world extends infinitely across a multiverse, maybe not.

No.
Mainstream science has plotted the magnitude of the universe and that is a known quantity.
There is no multiverse. But if there was that would also refute your claim of infinity.