Sunday, April 5, 2009

Infinite Infinities

What did I know about infinity?

I know that it is a very very large number. How large ? May be number of stars in the sky or number of pebbles in the sand. Some even try not to think about it and just console them self as "Infinity is large number outside the human imagination and then just don't further imagine it". Full stop.


Dangerous Knowledge

I then came through a series of video in you tube.It is documentary by David Malone. Where he deals with the work of 4 mathematicians. Who tried to see the maths differently. They were involved in a work that was very intricate, and complicated. It drives them crazy and finally they die studing it.

This is extremely maths filled with scientific excitement. If you are interested in maths, mathematician see this video.



Infinity is made up of more infinity.

I got only interested in first part about the works of Georg Cantor.
See more about his life in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor.
In the later part of his life he worked on proving continuum hypothesis.
continuum hypothesis tries to explore more on infinity.
Infinity is made up of more infinity.
let me explain more.
How may points are there in a line between point 0 and 1 on the number line ?
10, for a person how would measure with a precision of 0.1 cm. If I increase precision of measurement to 0.01 i will mark 100 point. If I go on increasing the precision the number of point i am able to mark are more. And finally i can confidently make you convince that number of point between 0 and 1 is infinite. I want to call this infinite number as INFINITE. (one with caps)
In same way i can also explain there are infinite points between 0 and 0.1. Let me call this infinite number as infinite. Now how do i link this INFINITE and infinite.
Should I write

INFINITE = 10 * infinite
But i don't think about equation would be correct. But i can surely understand that infinite is made up of infinite infinities.

Let me put it in some other way. What is a matter made up of ? Molecules. Then molecules made up of Atoms. Atoms were thought of as uncut-table. (that's why the name atom is derived from Greek name atomes). Later it was found to made up of electrons protons and neutrons. Then scientist took a lot of time to find a proper model of atom. (to put electrons, protons and neutrons in different positions in atom). I recently came to know that even electrons neutrons and protons are made of something called a quarks. I don't what they are made up of ? (May be some scientist would have found it out).
But only thing i can get about from above desciption is that things are divisible infinately.

Human is not capable of understanding inifite. At least i dont understand it fully, but i know that i dont understand. :)

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