Infinity

Couldn't we test the premise? Say, how long does it take for the first 1000 digits of Pi to repeat in order? That's got to be easier than an infinite number of chances producing another me.
 

ambush80

Senior Member
Ok, pi is a good example of my original question. If a number can be classified as a non repeating, non terminating decimal, why would infinity imply every situation must repeat?

It doesn't seem to me like it does. Can you link me where you saw or heard that?
 

ambush80

Senior Member
Couldn't we test the premise? Say, how long does it take for the first 1000 digits of Pi to repeat in order? That's got to be easier than an infinite number of chances producing another me.

I wonder if that ever happens? And why stop at the first 1,000?
 

ambush80

Senior Member
I am not telling you what you don't know Ambush. It is not that the finitude of the circumference of a circle is reliant upon an infinitely progressive number for description...but it does so (in this case) only as it relates to another particular number assigned to the radius. And someone did/does that assigning. Find a way of perfectly figuring half, 1/4, 1/16 or even a 1/9xxxxxx (as long as it's finite) of the length of an arc of a circle...and I'll come to your award ceremony. Till then, the closest we yet have is that Pi thing relative to the radius. We seem to like neat...and tidy fits.

Light really doesn't travel at 186xxx miles per second, it only does so in description as one of an infinite number of other descriptors assignable. If we forgo the measurement of mile, light travels at 1/31622400 of a light year/second. But that measurement gets unwieldy when trying to describe how far the gas station is from my house. It's about 1/5.8817664e+12 (whatever that number is!) of a light year from my door.

Then we get into the whole time thing, anyway. If we monkey with time (like calling two seconds...one second) or whatever other permutation we would care to come up with, then of course, that all changes too, in description. But, regardless, light does what it does. And circles, their circumferences and areas...even relative to the thing we have assigned as radius.

A utility assigned in one place does not easily equate to utility in all. Maybe the framer can get away with a tape that only marks every 16 inches...but the guy designing the reactor...not so much. Like I said, it's not as if you don't know this.

All these measurements have their origins in naturally occurring phenomena, the duration of an orbit, a distance from the equator to the North Pole through Paris, the force of gravity on water. No wonder they're so imperfect. They're a pretty good starting point for a hairless ape I suppose and they do help get us barely out into our solar system.

I like that people keep looking for explanations and answers.
 

ambush80

Senior Member
Ok, pi is a good example of my original question. If a number can be classified as a non repeating, non terminating decimal, why would infinity imply every situation must repeat?

As I understand it (which admittedly is probably wrong or horribly simplistic), Multiverse Theory predicts that all imaginable possibilities are occurring simultaneously. There's a pig faced version of me like in that old Twilight Zone episode. There are beings that are silica based instead of carbon based. There's the God of the Christians and the God of the Cherokee. It's too much for me to wrap my head around.
 
I was only asking about pi repeating as a simple thought experiment about infinite return.

"The concept of "eternal recurrence", the idea that with infinite time and a finite number of events, events will recur again and again infinitely, is central to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche"

I know it blurs the line of physic and philosophy, but I think we learn by learning how to think.
 
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I have no agenda and no answer on the question of "why". I'm just curious. There are people using their minds and discovering fundamental truths about the "how". Like the detection of gravitational waves further validating Einstein's math nearly 100 years later.
 

Israel

BANNED
I was only asking about pi repeating as a simple thought experiment about infinite return.

"The concept of "eternal recurrence", the idea that with infinite time and a finite number of events, events will recur again and again infinitely, is central to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche"

I know it blurs the line of physic and philosophy, but I think we learn by learning how to think.

I didn't know Nietzche got into that...and I don't know much about him. JBP mentions him frequently, though.

It does follow a form of logic, though, that I've questioned...(wondered about, considered). And I don't know anything beyond whatever is being called a "theory of multiverses" than having heard that phrase. I have no idea for the basis of that except as thought experiment (which oddly is not always a negligible thing). I don't think the logic requires one even go there. (No, I don't mean go to another "of the multiverse". Do they even recognize the term "round trip" in any of them others?)

"If"...and that's the big IF, (to which I really do not subscribe) "the universe and time are infinite"...if anything exists in it that is, or has been...then in the infinite there could not even be the legitimate concept of a "finite number" of events. But more than this, anything that is/has been...is subject to infinite recurrence. Not just you recurring in a consecutive sense (though it could be)...but that at any given time...there would be an infinite number of you. In the infinite.

It's not far derived from Bullet's sig "Only what can happen does happen..."

Cause if it happens...in the infinite it happens to an infinite degree.
 

WaltL1

Senior Member
About all I know about Pi is that strawberry rhubarb is my favorite.

Just wanted to contribute to the thread :)
 
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