Is The Universe Infinite? [Video]

This is a brief history on the matter which actually starts with Pi.  The Greek mathematician Pythagoras gets into this incredible question:

Does the universe go on forever? Where do we fit within it? And how would the great thinkers have wrapped their brains around the far-out ideas on today’s cutting edge?

For those who find infinity hard to grasp, even troubling, you’re not alone. It’s a concept that has long tormented even the best minds.

Over two thousand years ago, the Greek mathematician Pythagoras and his followers saw numerical relationships as the key to understanding the world around them.

But in their investigation of geometric shapes, they discovered that some important ratios could not be expressed in simple numbers.

Take the circumference of a circle to its diameter, called Pi.

Computer scientists recently calculated Pi to 5 trillion digits, confirming what the Greeks learned: there are no repeating patterns and no ending in sight.

The discovery of the so-called irrational numbers like Pi was so disturbing, legend has it, that one member of the Pythagorian cult, Hippassus, was drowned at sea for divulging their existence.

What do you think?  Is this a concept that is beyond our grasp?  Feel free to comment!



2 Comments

  1. Dave English said:

    Impossible and completely unthinking. Infinity can’t be divided/measured in increments. In fact it can’t be measured at all nor encroached on my measurement. All material things are increments. The universe is meaningless in terms of infinity.

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