Would you have infinite possibilites in an infinite universe?
Yes.
Just in case you thought this universe was infinite, I should point out a logical proof I heard attributed to Issac Newton, though it likely predates him:
If the universe was infinite and contained an infinite number of stars, then no matter what direction you faced in a night sky would have a star and the sky would be a solid glowing shell of varying intensity.
Of course, you could argue that the universe is infinite but the stars are not. That just suggests a bunch of galaxies occupying some infinitely tiny corner of an unimaginably huge space.
I can’t remember whose argument it was, but I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t Isaac Newton. Of course the argument is flawed as not only does it assume an infinte sized universe it assumes a static universe of infinite age.
1/ No.
2/ Olber’s Paradox.
3/ Merry Christmas.
4/Happy Birthday, Isaac Newton.
Well, what we think of as the universe might not be the universe, it might just be the part we can observe. The real universe (def: everything) could still be infinite. It might not be made of matter as we know it.
The argument can be made that since we can conceive of infinity, the universe must be infinite. This (stupid) argument is at least as venerable as the (stupid) argument posted above in opposition.
In his first pop book, Stephen Hawking maintains that the Universe cannot be infinite because it had a beginning, the Big Bang.
But, it is unbounded. Meaning that you cannot go outside the Universe, you carry it with you no matter where you go.
Also the Universe is not expanding into anything. It’s simply expanding. This point and having no boundary makes it it seem to be infinite, since we can never be close to the edge. There is no edge.
Does this 15 yr old idea still hold water?
I’ve seen a proof, though I can’t remember the logic of its steps, that if the universe will be expanding forever, then of course it will be infinite, and if it will ever be infinite, then it always was infinite. And recent data showing that the expansion is accelerating indicate that it will be expanding forever. There was an article in Scientific American a few months ago that talked about an infinite universe, casually mentioning that most scientists now think that it is infinite, but not carefully explaining why.
Can anyone fill in the blanks for me?
If this was true would not one possibility detroy all others if all things being equal?
This is false, IMO. If the universe were infinite in extent, it could certainly have an infinite number of stars and galaxies, but here’s the rub: the brightness of distant objects drops off as the square of the distance it is from us. This is the well-known inverse square law. Thus, if we maintain the average density of stars we have today (and there’s no reason to suppose that it would be otherwise in our putative infinite universe), it would not be very much brighter than it is today because the brightness at a much smaller rate than the distance. The night sky is a more or less uniform brighness–it’snot perfectly black, by any means. This is very evident in a decent-sized telescope. And the Hubble Deep Field shows the universe has stars and galaxies at almost every point in the sky as it is.
Seems to me the answer would be no. Of course, “infinite universe” can have a lot of meanings. If we are assuming that there is only ONE universe, the one we inhabit, and such univerise is infinite then all things would have to obey the same laws of physics; thus infinite possibilities would not be possible. However, if we view “the universe” as a term for a collective of mulitple universes (which is a view exposed by some), then I suppose the laws of physics may differ in other universes and thus allow for infinite possibilities.