# Is there any legal concept of infinity? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 8, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-concept-of-infinity/627610 "2012-07-08T17:42:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2012, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-concept-of-infinity/627610/21 "2012-07-10T23:38:27Z")
AFAIK the Power Company hadn’t yet ceased supplying GDC so there was no need to seek specific performance. The Court declared the contract to continue to apply and so the Power Company continued to supply the electricity at that rate. The most recent refernce I can find to this situation is a 2007 [Commerce Commission decision](http://www.comcom.govt.nz/search-results/?q=gore) which indicated the contract was still going on then. Things have been complicated by changes to the electricty industry in NZ since the original decision (in brief a company can be a supplier or lines business but not both). GDC built an aquatic centre and ice rink in 2002. This brought their annual usage up to 2.5GWh, which is cut-off point between being a lines business and supply business. The Power Company (as a lines business) would then be over the threshold and in breach of the regulations, so the council sought an exemption from the commerce commission which was denied. As best I can make out, the Power company can now only supply up to 2.5GWh per year under the old indefinite contract. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-concept-of-infinity/627610/22 "2012-07-11T00:07:44Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > Corporations and trusts may exist indefinitely but they’re not infinite. But I would argue that copyright law indirectly recognizes that a corporation may last forever. Copyright law time-frames are based on the life of the creator but what if a corporation is the creator? Could Disney theoretically hold on to a copyright forever? The answer is no, but that had to be specifically written into the law. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-concept-of-infinity/627610/23 "2012-07-11T00:11:00Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > The U.S. must be one of those primitive societies because you do own the minerals ‘to the center of the earth’ under your land here and it isn’t just hypothetical either. Very deep drilling technologies are allowing people to cash in on petroleum, natural gas, and minerals miles under their land today and it is theirs and no one else’s all the way down. More precisely, the mineral rights owner owns them. Those are usually bundled together with surface rights but can be unbundled and sold separately. My family’s depends on this fact because our land that is being drilled today was bought long before such drilling technology existed yet it is still all ours. > > Other countries don’t do it that way however. In the US, mineral rights are severable meaning an owner can sell them apart from the land itself. If you (or any previous owner) didn’t sever the rights, you still own them. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-concept-of-infinity/627610/24 "2012-07-19T00:03:57Z")
It occurs to me that the United States itself is presumed to be eternal. Emphases added in _italics_. The 1777 Articles of Confederation referred to the “_perpetual_ Union between the states.” In 1783, George Washington wrote that the first thing “essential to the well being, I may even venture to say, to the existence of the United States as an independent power [is] an _indissoluble_ Union of the states under one Federal head.” After the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison wrote to a friend at the ratifying convention in New York that ratification was to be “in toto and _for ever_.” After the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, Washington wrote of his satisfaction that “my fellow citizens understand the true principles of government and liberty [and appreciate] their _inseparable_ union.” As new states and their citizens joined the Union, Washington said the nation should bind “those people to us by a chain which _never_ can be broken.” In his Farewell Address of September 1796, he wrote, 'To the efficacy and _permanency_ of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable." [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-concept-of-infinity/627610.md?page=1)