- An infinity is a concept that represents the quantity of something that has no limit. It can be either the lifespan of a living thing, durability of a non-living thing or from the moment of existing to never seize to exist at all. An infinity is a concept that we apply to many spheres of our lives, including religion, science and even math. Throughout the history we tried to grasp the idea of infinity, but everything on Earth seems to be finite, as we know it.
- I cannot pinpoint the exact location or the time that I was introduced to the idea of infinity; however, I would assume that around middle school I was visualizing the concepts outside the school programs. I used to sketch and draw fighting scenes on my free time during school hours, so entertainment elements such as comics and games characters seem very fun to me. Some of those comics characters have bigger lifespan than others due to the power they possess, therefore I probably started thinking about infinity when characters were immortal or there were some universal types of scale which makes you ponder upon the idea how small we are in an astronomical scale compared to outer planets, stars and even galaxies. Overall, I was probably around 12 years old when infinity came to my mind and this idea made me feel intrigued, because how can a person’s life be finite and yet, most of the religions have a concept of a God that is immortal, who created us and yet, there were never a mention of the ultimate end except for a human life. In my opinion, it really starts to deal with an abstract mind in a philosophical and even psychological way, since there is no definite answer to whether infinity really exists.
- I cannot recall any conversations I had about an infinity; however, I have an argument that I have been thinking about recently, is that how can our universe expand without any limits into an infinity if anything we ever know on the Earth and even within our galaxy, such as planets and stars have a certain lifespan they can co-exist relatively to their creation. For example, my main theory on that, is that even if the universe is expanding, it needs a certain outside space to do it, it cannot just bend the fabric of reality and form new stars, planets and even galaxies as it wishes out of nothing. As one of the principles that governs our physics is the “Law of conservation of energy”, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed, which implies that even the universe itself, in theory, cannot just create new matter out of nowhere and disperse the energy as it wishes, there has to be a limit at some point, and I believe that the concept of physics that we have discovered throughout the history should be applicable anywhere else outside of our scope of astronomical scale. And based on science, the idea of infinity is arbitrary/abstract, instead of something that has a value. Therefore, my conclusion on this argument, is that either there is a being like God that governs over the universe and the way it behaves, or the universe does have a limit even if it expands beyond our human understanding as of right now.
- One of the references to the infinity found in pop-culture that I can relate to is the endless, internal battle between good and evil within the Star Wars franchise. Even since I was a kid, I really enjoyed playing Lego Star Wars, where I build my own minifigures, battles and scenarios as an entertainment. What really intrigued me about Star Wars, is that there is an always ongoing rivalry between the good and evil forces that somehow need to stay in balance, or the entire civilizations will collapse if the either side would go out of hands. It really makes you think philosophically about how even in real life, we have positive/negative emotions, law-abiding and criminal activities, as well as good and evil intentions from our overall surroundings. This made me wonder, how we as humans cannot be fully good or fully bad either, we are a combination of both. This brings my topic to an idea of Yin and Yang, a Chinese philosophy on how the light and dark sides of the circle are in balance with each other, which shows two opposite flowing substances which collide into one shape. However, this philosophical notion about good and evil concept isn’t the same as in mathematics. Because as a referenced before, the Star Wars franchise is portraying light and darks sides of the force as individuals who have the ability to wield the force and even lightsaber as a way to fight their opponents, but it is up to a person to decide which sides he is on, based on his experience in life. But in mathematics, we use infinity to represent points on the graph within the curve that has no limits, either towards the negative or positive directions. (Star Wars pop-culture link: https://toxigon.com/the-philosophy-of-the-force ); (Yin and Yang link: What Is the Meaning of Yin and Yang? ).
- A drawing that illustrates the concept of infinity:
Hi, Ilya. Your reflection on the concept of infinity was interesting, especially how you linked it to comic book characters. It’s fascinating how comics and games can prompt us to think about complex math concepts. I also wonder about the mysteries of the universe and how modern physics explains them. I think the relation you mentioned between science and philosophy and math was interesting.
Imagine you have a magical bag that you can pull candy from forever. No matter how much you take out, there’s always more inside, endlessly replenishing itself. That’s what infinity is like—it’s something that never runs out, never ends.Or think about climbing an endless staircase. You can keep climbing, step after step, forever and never reach the top. Infinity is like that staircase: no matter how far you go, there’s always another step.Infinity just goes on and on, so in some strange way, starting from anywhere in infinity is the same as starting from the beginning.
A popular reference to infinity that many people know is from *Toy Story*: Buzz Lightyear’s iconic phrase, “To infinity and beyond!” It’s both a playful and meaningful take on the concept, capturing the idea of going farther than imaginable—beyond limits, beyond boundaries, and into the unknown.
One pop culture reference would be In *Toy Story*, this phrase reflects Buzz’s adventurous spirit and optimism, making infinity feel like an exciting, limitless adventure. It’s a great example of infinity as something that’s vast, inspiring, and worth exploring!
Hi Scott – this seems to be your submitted work for the assignment. Could you put it into a new blog post (instead of in the comments of another post)? You can find instructions for doing so in the assignment itself (check out the link in the first paragraph). Thanks!
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Your discussion in #3 about the universe reminds me why I love learning about Physics so much – even basic questions like “is the universe infinite or not” or “will there be an end to time” seem not to have clear answers. Awesome.