No, because a finite number plus a finite number is another finite number. If it was finite, and then got bigger, it’s still finite.
I don’t know how to convince you that you can add a number to infinity and the answer will be infinity, but that is the case.
Maybe this will illustrate the concept of unequal infinite numbers:
Draw a line segment on a piece of paper. Label the endpoints A and C. Label another point on the line segment B (somewhere between A and C). How many points are there in line segment AB? An infinite number. How many points are there in line segment AC? An infinite number. Ah, but AC includes all of the points in AB plus additional points! So the infinite number describing AC is larger than (i.e., unequal to) the infinite number describing AB. Q.E.D. and whoop-de-doo. . . .
I’ve always taken it as a philosophical axiom that, by definition, one cannot have an infinite number of finite things. You can have a zillion apples, but not an infinite number of apples. You can have a zillion stars, but you can’t have an infinite number of stars. You can have a zillion atoms in the universe, but not an infinite number of atoms. So count me in with the “finite but unbounded” crowd.
What is a universe? Good question. . . .
I think our error is we treat infinity like a number. It is a concept to explain that numbers fail at some point. We are trying to divide an idea.
Also the universe is an island surrounded by whatever it is that surrounds universes.
An infinite number of anything is everything.
An infinite number of anything is everything. Multiply it divide it the answer is one.
I am just not getting it.
However, what BJMOOSE said, “I’ve always taken it as a philosophical axiom that, by definition, one cannot have an infinite number of finite things. You can have a zillion apples, but not an infinite number of apples. You can have a zillion stars, but you can’t have an infinite number of stars. You can have a zillion atoms in the universe, but not an infinite number of atoms. So count me in with the “finite but unbounded” crowd.”
This brings me closer to an answer.
Also, Least Original User Name Ever, explains, " the universe is an island surrounded by whatever it is that surrounds universes." indicates that the universe is NOT infinite.
Vodka ain’t work’n. Weed?? Anyhow, I am trying, and I do appreciate the help (and confussion added) by all those kind helpers and posters. Thanks all.
Yeah but here’s the problem. My primitive intellect cannot wrap itself around the idea of an “infinite universe” or “curved universe” or dimensions above x, y, and z (and perhaps t). Most of these things might make sense mathmatically, but how does that translate into the actual universe?
Why can’t you have an infinite number of stars? If I take a bag of an infinite number of marbles, can’t I place them one foot from each other in an infinite line in both directions? I would need an infinite amount of space for that however.
So if I travel 13 mly to the edge of the visible universe, what would I see? Sounds like we’re back in Galileos time and people think we’re the center of the universe again. 
If the universe is in an infinite void (how can “nothing” be infinite?) uniformly filled with matter, it would stand to reason that every possible configuration of matter, anything than can happen, has happened, could happen or could have happened is happening right now somewhere…all the time…always.
Seconds of YOUR time at the speed of light or of MY Earth Eastern Standard Time? Because according to Einstein you would travel an infinite distance instantaneously from your perspective.
It doesn’t. The probability of a given event may be 1, but that’s very definitely not a guarantee that it will happen.
Draw a line the same length as AC through points D and E. For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that A is left of B, B is left of C, and D is left of E. Draw the lines AD and BE and label their intersection F. For every point G on AB, there is a line through F and G which intersects DE at exactly one point, and for every point H on DE, there is a line through F and H which intersects AB exactly once. Therefore, AB and DE have exactly the same number of points.
Now for every point I on AC, there’s a line intersecting AC which is parallel to AD and intersects DE in exactly one point. The same line intersects AC in exactly one point, so it follows that AC and DE have exactly the same number of points.
We have that AB has the same number of points as DE, and DE has the same number of points as AC, so by the transitive property of equality, AB has the same number of points as AC.
It would’ve been more convenient for me if you had made your longer segment parallel to your shorter segment, but the result does not change.
Sorry, I should have specified that DE is parallel to AC and that AD and CE are perpendicular to AC. Mea culpa.
So, If the universe is constantly expanding, then is it correct to say the universe is not infinite? And never can be?
In 5 minutes it is bigger than when it was previously (or was it?).
Please?
How is it not? Isn’t that the definition? Mathmatically, in an infinitely large universe, any event with a non-zero property must happen somewhere.
That doesn’t mean everything imaginable can ever happen. Assuming the laws of physics are constant throughout the universe, you won’t see a naturally occuring cube planet or anything because physical laws make such an event have a 0 probability of happening.
It’s not like a bunch of objects flying away from each other until they fill a container. The container is expanding as well. In other words the universe isn’t expanding “into” anything.
Pure mathematics doesn’t have any notion of certain or impossible events, but I think (and many people agree with me) that there is a mathematical basis to say that events of probability 1 are not certain (at least in theory).
It’s reasonable to insist that if an event is certain, then it is impossible that such event does not happen. Because the sum of the probabilities for an event and the complement of that event must be 1, it follows that if an event of probability 1 is certain, an event of probability 0 must be impossible.
Probability is a measure, and what that guarantees you is that if you have countably infinitely many mutually exclusive events (i.e., no two of them can both happen), the probability that at least one happens is the sum of the probabilities of each one happening. But that’s all that you’re guaranteed, and the problem you run in to is that, if you have more than a countably infinite number of possible events, there are distributions for which every single event has probability 0–for instance, a countably infinite number of junctures at which an event can either happen or not happen. It seems reasonable that something must be possible, and therefore not every event of probability 0 is impossible, which implies that not every event of probability 1 is certain.
That’s the basic argument. There are some folks who would like to identity events of probability 1 with certainties, but it’s by no means a simple task. Google for “nonstandard probability theory” if you’d like more informatino on it.
Don’t think that the universe is expanding. Instead, think that the visible universe is getting bigger. Everything outside of it is completely unknowable.
I can assert that the space outside the visible universe is filled with gumbo, and that space expands by dissolving gumbo. The beauty of this is that no one can ever prove me wrong.
I think I get it. If I understand the theory correctly, the probability wouldn’t be 0 or 1 but could be infinitesimally close to 0 or 1.
Flip a coin for all eternity. Chances for flipping all heads: nonzero. Chances for all tails: you guessed it. Compatibility: Zero.
But hey, I got this thought. Say you are right, and every possible situation repeats infinitely. Any situation located at any x,y,z,t would also be located on at least some point sharing three coordinates with the first. Thus you’d only have to move along one dimension to experience the entire universe.
Literally infitesimally small. .5 to the power of infinity.
Theoretically. There was an artical about this idea in Scientific American (I think that was the magazine). The idea is that as there are a finite, although enormous possible combinations of atoms in a given space, statistically, if you have a big enough universe, that configuration of atoms will eventually repeat somewhere else in the universe. The distance to a mirror earth, however, was beyond astronomical. Like many orders of magnitude beyond the distance to the edge of the visible universe.
Unless of course the earth is one of relatively few possible combinations of atoms. I mean, we haven’t explored all visible space, who’s saying it won’t start repeating itself if we look only a lightyear or two further?
You probably can’t have a planet like earth without a star almost or exactly like the sun, but perhaps you can’t have a star like the sun without a planet almost or exactly like the earth either? Thus, from a relatively small identical area of space-time, grows a larger identical area. Or perhaps not. This rules.
Chocolate pudding. On alternate Tuesdays it gets covered with a nice whipped cream topping, and the extra-universal being that inhabit this space sit on the edge of our universe and sing along to Bobby Daren songs.