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Strange, Well also infinity does not have a literal meaning. It is a concept, meant to express that there is no limit. If the idiom speaks of a thing without measure as being something without limit, that is as close to literal as you can get. Is the concept of limit a literal concept? I think it is. It refers to an end or a beginning, a border or a limiting factor of some sort. If there is no literal limit, then the thing has that infinite characteristic. It is without limit. Regards, TAR In the argument with Gater, I suggested that the emergence of iron as an element was a limiting factor in the backward consideration of the count of Earthlike planets. Before there was iron you cannot count any prospective Earthlike planets. There cannot be any before the first.

Acme, Well I will have to let you mathematicians fight out whether you can measure infinity, or whether one infinity is countable, or larger than another. All those distinctions are way beyond me. But I still don't think it makes any sense to say you can measure infinity. What scale do you use? What do you compare it to? Idioms: beyond measure 1. In excess. 2. Without limit. Regards, TAR​ ​

iNow and Lagoon Island Pearls, OK playstation is a red herring. But the idea of unreality getting confused with reality is a potential cause for some of our problems. I am not suggesting that we should outlaw video games. I am suggesting that we should pay attention to our youth and give them judgement skills and living skills, rather than think that the internet will teach them how to be. Same with drugs. They are a terrific draw and its hard for a mom and dad to compete with the local pusher, in terms of providing ways for their 17 year old, to feel good. We adults are not always that great at being role models, with our addictions to TV shows and sitting in front of the football game with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. My thought about the video games stemmed from my memory of a report concerning the young man who shot up Sandy Hook. He did not have the proper people skills and he had spent a good deal of his time on the computer. I am not blaming video games, as I don't blame gun ownership or Hollywood, or the drug companies, for our issues. I am just suggesting that people should not kill me to provide a rush for themselves. There are other ways to feel good that are helpful and considerate of other people. Regards, TAR

Thread, I have been listening to CNN today as they have had 24 hour coverage on Paris and the aftermath including Obama's press conference at the G20. In the last couple hours they are talking about SONY PlayStation and its potential role in providing ISIL fighters with a secure chat room from which they can plan attacks and even practice them in the games, virtually. I am thinking that this merge of fantasy with reality is a serious problem that we should be talking about ways to counter. The soccer games that Airbrush mentioned are a good start The internet is a strong recruiting tool for Da'ish and young disenfranchised youth are certainly a prime resource for the leaders of Daesh to draw upon. I heard earlier today, on Fox, (which I tend to click off) that Minnesota has a large number of Somalian refugee youth, and some twenty or thirty of them have left the U.S. to fight for something in foreign lands. Many of the Paris attackers were French and Belgium Nationals. Fighting for a cause, and changing the world is a draw for 18 year olds. Where I am trying to stand against this movement, is in its unreality. In its disregard for life. In its promise of afterlife reward, which must be a part of the message that causes a person to wear an exploding vest and sacrifice their life for the Caliphate. Two unreal aspects. The confusion of virtual death with actual death. And the confusion of the false reward of virgins and satin couches and rivers of honey (which don't exist, by all evidence) with the rewards of actual survival and joy on this planet, which by all evidence is the ONLY thing that exists. We need to offer our youth enjoyable and profitable actual living skills and strategies, to keep them from drugs and the opiate of religion, and the dream world of PlayStation. I know this is a thread on Paris, but ways to feel good, about actual survival and human love and interaction need to be central to our discussion. These are the things that will cause a person to cure diseases and build hospitals and the wealth and infrastructure that will result in a happy, secure life. Blasting away aliens is probably not the best way to learn how to find enjoyment in life. Regards, TAR

DevilSolution, I think the time for not getting involved in the Middle East , is already in the past. Withdrawing our forces (U.S.) after ousting Saddam is one of the reasons that the Sunni power structure returned in the form that it did (ISIL.) I think you have it right, that the situation is complex, and the Turks don't want an autonomous Kurdish nation on their southern border, and everybody from the Saudis to the Russians want some say over the oil in the area. Iran and Hezbolla are involved and hence Israel has some concern over who is in power in Syria. And if Israel is concerned the U.S. is concerned, and since we left the power vacuum in Iraq, we are somewhat responsible for what happens in the area, now. Many in the world agree that Assad is not a reliable leader, and should lose power. But that Arab spring revolt seems to have gone quite awry. The U.S. is responsible perhaps for some internet instigation related to the Arab Spring, and responsible for backing groups fighting Assad with logistical and medical and humanitarian and military support. It is hard, in good conscience to stir the pot, and not stick around to eat the soup. I think the time for not invading foreign countries has passed. Not only because of our interests and history in the area, but because of the age of the internet. Foreign countries are now only a keyboard tap away. Regards, TAR

Gater, Boring? Why don't you answer my iron question. That should prove interesting. You can have infinite time and still have a period of time within that infinite time that operates under certain rules and configurations, with certain entities existent that did not exist prior their existence. I gave the example of the internet. The internet is not infinite. I gave the example of iron core planets. Their existence cannot be infinite. Maybe our universe is of the same kind of entity. It was not, until it was. It came into being at the big bang, and time and space and matter and energy came into being at the same time, and did not exist "prior". Nothing outside the universe, nothing prior the universe, and nothing after the universe. Nothing smaller than the smallest component of the universe, nothing larger than the largest collection of universe stuff. Infinity is a construct of the mind. There is no thing that is actually infinite, that we have ever measured or witnessed. It would be contradictory to ever measure something as infinite. If you bounce an ideal ball and it bounces half as high each time it falls and it comes to rest in 3 seconds, it would have bounced an infinite amount of times within a finite period of time. However, that is an "ideal" ball. A ball we bounced in our minds. The experiment does not have to follow the rules of reality. Like your imagination of an infinite universe, that has to be the case. It might not "have to be" the case. Perhaps there is a time where the elasticity of the ball rebounds but not enough to lift the ball off the ground, or perhaps when the distance of the rebound reaches a Planck length there is no physical way to divide the distance in half, so we cannot count any bounces smaller than a plank length, because there is no meaning to such a bounce. Boring? Perhaps you just have no further argument than to say "the universe is infinite" with no further discussion or evidence, or logical argument to offer and you are withdrawing because you have nothing interesting to say. Regards, TAR

Gater, Strange did not say the universe was not infinite, he said the writer of the OP article might not have been correct to state, as a fact, that the universe was infinite. Such a determination, has not been made. Suggested as a possibility, but not established as an unquestioned fact. Thing is, such a thing would be hard to prove. And you cannot prove a negative to begin with. Were I am coming from, is to question your idea that because you think the universe is infinite, and has been extant forever, that means that an infinite number of Earths have been around, before, now and later. Where I have specifically questioned this, is how you figure there could be an Earthlike iron core planet before there was iron? If there was a time period, even an infinite one available prior the first iron atom, there cannot be ANY iron core planets formed during this time. So you cannot count an infinite number of Earthlike planets within this infinite time period, because the total possible, without iron is ZERO. Zero times infinity is undefined, but looks a lot like zero, to me. Regards, TAR

Thread, Well France has taken the attacks as acts of war, perpetuated by Da'ish on the French homeland. Da'ish is attempting to establish a caliphate that would ring the Mediterranean. The Koran includes passages that talk about fighting for the prophet until all the world is for Allah. I am not of the mind to either be afraid of Islam, nor to be subject to it and would be perfectly willing to live in peace with anybody of any religion...except a religion that labels me as Satan, and looks like Da'ish looks, and acts like Da'ish acts. It is difficult to take a pacifist course, against such an enemy. And difficult to accept the label of Jingo just because I do not think turning the other cheek is a suitable reaction to the Paris attacks. Regards, TAR I would tend to stand with France, in whatever actions she sees required to defeat Da'ish.

Except perhaps in your statements of a differenciation between my universe and your universe. If the model of the universe you hold in your head would be the same model as the model I hold in my head, then we both could feel as if we contained the whole story, presently. This is probably why people here ask for proof of your claims. If there is proof, that fits the facts then everybody adjusts their model accordingly. The Earth for instance is no longer considered flat, nor riding on the back of a turtle. It used to be. The Earth used to be the center of the universe, but the models that were continually collectively built, dropped that requirement from the model, and we now consider the whole place homogeneous, with no preferred center. However, as far as collective scientific models go, there are some several that contain images of what the universe is "presently" like. And that makes the universe in the mind of a string theorist, possibly different from that in the mind of Morman. The "best" model however is the one that fits every fact we can find out about the place. I have a strong feeling though, that what we think about the place does not change it very much. It is the way it is, and the truth of it will not change much according to our thinking about it. The same number of Earthlike planets have existed, do exist and will exist, in the exact order that that has been occurring, prior the OP article and study, as after the OP article and study.

Gater, I am thinking it does not matter much, in terms of what is for dinner tonight. And you have to be clear in the question as to what you mean by among the first. That is my whole question as indicated in the OP and follow up thoughts. Are we talking about what we see, or are we talking about what must be the case now, for us to see it later? I think there are probably other life sustaining planets, probably none "like" Earth. Similar to, perhaps, but as two species, with a lot of similarities can be completely different from each other, probably Earth size planets with liquid water and iron cores are likewise, different from Earth. Not twins. Too many things are required to be the same, for there to be a really close match. And the distance between us, and any match, is enough to place that Earthlike planet out of our reach. It is either happening now, in which case someone in this solar system will not know about it for the length of time it takes light to travel the distance between, or if we see it happening, it is just an image of a past reality. In either case we can not consider it as an event which we can commune with, between now and suppertime. Regards, TAR Gater, Let's say for instance that we as Earthlings take a million years to travel to a planet on the other side of the Milky Way. We find it quite Earthlike and settle it. We send a message home which is received 100,000 years after we send it. When we get the return message, 200,000 years would have passed, by which time the message would be being received by our very great grandchildren. 10,000 generations would have lived and died, before the return message was received. What would you think about the verb "is", in that situation? Regards, TAR and the whole story, the launch the landing the message and the return message took 1.2 million years and 50 thousand generations. Each generation had an idea of what is was, and no generation grasped the whole story, as "present"

Gater, I don't think there is your universe and then my universe. All evidence points to us existing in the same one. It would be my universe and it would be your universe. If on the other hand you figure your model is superior to mine then that might be the case, but the fact of the matter is, what you figure is the case is not necessarily the case. That is what evidence is about. Can you back up your claim? Of course you can't. We cannot even get to the other side of our galaxy and return with the report, much less check out what is 100 billion lys out. Does it make sense to you that there are Turtles all the way down? How can you get an Earthlike planet before there is iron? Regards, TAR

Gater, I am referring to the universe we know about., Any other construct is imaginary in nature, and is not forced by logic to be the case. And I am referring to the other construct that you have, and others including myself have of an infinite existence from which this universe sprung. The physical laws governing such an extent of existence are not readily knowable. What I am suggesting, is that such an area of existence, outside the knowable universe, is none of our business. It does not pertain to us. We cannot go there or be there or exist there. We are here. This is our universe. It is plenty big and plenty long lived on its own. We cannot reach the extents of this one, it is useless to claim any grasp of something that we cannot check on, or have any reason to check on. . Now, on the other hand. If we were to understand the nature of what could be passed on from a universe collapsing into a black hole, into the next universe, the next big bang, and understand the nature of universes and the physical laws that they engender, then indeed we might then consider ourselves an integral part of the history of universes, and guess at what the last one was like, and wonder about what the next one might look like. But still then this universe would be our universe, and the others before and after, or surrounding this one, in whatever dimension of time or space you wish to imagine is existing in an infinite fashion, would be "other" universes. Not ours. So I suppose I am referring to our universe and am thinking we have no responsibility for anybody else's. We cannot claim ownership of the eternity you say exists. We are quite committed to this reality. And this one alone. And this one, may well be finite in nature. As unique and fragile and limited as the extent of the history of the Oak tree. As an individual tree or as a species, the Oak tree is a fleeting thing, against the expanse of time and space. Even on a finite stage. Regards, TAR

Gater, Well as you say, its a guess, but my guess is that what the universe is doing now, it never did before. To this, it would be hard for planets like Earth to have formed prior there being the heavier elements available. Like no Iron for the core and no carbon for carbon based life to be based on. , So other Earth like planets here and there in a very large galaxy, sure. And a very large number of other galaxies give us a lot of chances​ that there are other Earth sized planets concurrently existent or that have developed or will develop in the last 5 billion, or next 5 billion year history of the place, but figuring that an infinite number preceded us, ignores the possibility, that things might never have been like this before. . Like on Earth, the internet is not among an infinite number of internets that have developed in the past. It is the first and only to have developed on the planet. There cannot have been one in Atlantis. The microprocessor did not exist until 1971. Like the Iron atom is required to build a planet with an iron core, the microprocessor is required to build computers powerful enough and small enough and numerous enough to sustain an internet. And we do not know the physical laws present in any of the universes that may have existed prior this one. Even if we are to speculate that matter and energy came into being at the big bang, and developed the galaxies and generations of stars and the metalicity required to build Earthlike planets, we cannot be sure that a previous universe would have had the same physical laws and would have evolved along similar lines. It could have been completely different. In which case other Earths would not be indicated. So you cannot interpolate backward. Not to the early times of this universe, nor to the unknown physical laws of a different universe. Regards, TAR

So Gater, Is this among the first of many many Earths? Regards, TAR

Gater, Well let’s talk sets and subsets. If this universe, that we are trying to decide the finiteness or infinite nature of, is what you are calling the “observable universe” that began 13.8 billion years ago, and who’s stars and galaxies will burn out in 600 billion years and who’s mass might fall back into a massive black hole singularity over some finite period of time, then the life cycle of this universe is finite and might be considered to have a birth, a life and a death, the whole thing over a finite period of time of say a trillion years. So the universe is finite. If, when the mass and energy of the universe is collected back into a singularity, something else emerges from it, that something else would not be this universe. Would it? So if you are suggesting that there is a greater existence that we should consider, that includes whatever were the conditions “prior” or the conditions required for a singularity to be, such that this universe be an element in a greater set, then you need to show us the residuals from the previous occurrence of universeness, that lead you to this claim of the universe being just one in a chain of universes or just one element in a set of universes that extend spacially, forever. Regards, TAR ​

Strange, I don't think the raindrop is going faster than it looks. It is probably going as fast as it looks like it is going, except that from the observer's viewpoint, the positions of the raindrop at T 1 and T 2 were actually not where the raindrops where at T1 and T2. At T1 the raindrop had actually advanced a small distance to the right from its apparent position, and at T2 it actually was that same small distance to the right, further than the position at T2. In one of your links earlier in this thread I ran into a new term (for me,) "virial". It has to do with equations of state and although I don't get it yet, it seemed to be dealing with two ways to treat large systems, along the lines, or for the reasons I have been alluding to, in this and other threads, in that the particle on one side of the system right now is the one we see, while the particle on the other corner of the system, is no longer where it appears to be. I don't think this is a problem...unless you try to deal with the particles in the same equation. Then you have to specify whether you are considering the whole system as happening now, or whether you are considering the whole system in terms of its photon and gravity interaction with one specific point in the system. Regards TAR ​

Gater, Well let me ask you this. What were you doing the minute before your conception? Regards, TAR Gater, Adding a number to a number is imaginary in nature. In reality things emerge that did not exist prior their emergence. Like a hurricane. Just air pressure and water vapor and heat, before and after. But the hurricane itself is finite in duration. Regards, TAR

Gator and DrP, I remember quite vividly one night as a 13 year old, when I considered infinity. In both directions. I envisioned the cosmos as a place that contained universes of galaxies, much in the same manner as entities on our scale, contain organs and cells and molecules and atoms and electrons. That is where I got the idea of being insulated from the happenings at different scales, by being at this particular size. This particular size that we all, as human beings on Earth, are accustom to., To this, the entertainment of concepts of what is going on on very tiny scale and what is going on at very large scale, must be taken with a grain of salt. That is, what is useful on one scale is meaningless, or approaches meaninglessness on another, and what is trivial on one scale, could be catastrophic on another, and some scales are separated by so much, as an event on one scale is not pertinent to events on another. Consider the ending scene in one of the Men in Black movies, where an entire galaxy was in a charm on a cat’s collar earlier in the movie, and at the end we zoom out and see that our local group of galaxies are just molecules on a ball in the sport of some odd creatures…some many (insulating) scales up. To this, Gator, you cannot say that others do not entertain thoughts of infinity, or that they do not get it. We all get it. What you have to give in on though is the thought that you get it, and nobody else does. We are all, after all equally insulated from things rather tiny and things rather huge. None of us can claim to be in possession of a totality of understanding of the situation. Regards, TAR ​

Gator, While I also am simple enough to not be able to grasp the concept of infinity I find your name calling of Strange and Ophiolite quite unbased, and quite ridiculous. You, for instance, as Geordief just noted, cannot know the things you say you know. If such was as obvious as you claim it to be, then it would be obvious to everybody looking at it, and thinking about it. To some, there can be no other way but that there is an infinite God. To others the place just happened 13.8 billion years ago, and time came into existence along with the matter that moves around over it.. We are well insulated, by space and time from the totality of the universe, and from its beginnings and from its end. Whether or not the universe required conditions to come into being, that were "present" "before" the Big Bang is something that would be hard to get a good handle on. If space and time are infinite, then, as well, God should have a mother and father, or something to come from, some precondition, some container, some boundry upon which to judge his/her/its extent. So, when you say the universe is infinite, what do you base that on? Infinite, compared to what? Are you talking about the cosmos, or existence or some condition that is present, or was present, prior and around the universe, that gave the universe a stage upon which to play? What is this obvious logical thing that must have always been the case, everywhere, and forever? Regards, TAR

Gator, Have you ever been told the balloon with dots on it model? In that model, the 2D surface of the balloon is standing for the three dimensional space that the galaxies are "drawn" on. When you blow up the balloon, the dots get farther apart, even though the dots are not moving on the surface of the balloon. Now, I am not sure how photons, traveling through expanding space are supposed to react, but standard candles (know type galaxies and super novas) give out characteristic frequencies corresponding to certain electrons in certain elements falling from one understood energy level to another. If certain spectral lines, like a particular hydrogen line are present in the light coming from a distant object, but are measured as longer wavelengths (lower frequencies) we know that object is moving away from us, or we are moving away from it. If, as appears to be the case, the average of all apparent motion of objects at a certain distance (measured by comparative brightness), is away from us, but the same conclusions are draw concerning objects in the opposite direction, we cannot be moving away from the objects in that direction, AND from the objects in the direction 180 degrees diametrically opposed. Thus the conclusion is drawn, that the surface of the balloon is stretching, which is causing the distances between the dots to increase, without the dots moving in reference to the surface. Regards, TAR Gator, To top it off, the light from objects very very far away, so far away that the first light, from the time of the last scattering, is just now getting to us, is red shifted 1000 times into the radio frequencies. And these radio signals are coming in from all directions. We are not speeding away from all points. The good conclusion is that all points are speeding away from us. Since we cannot be at the center of an explosion, the suitable conclusion is that the balloon is being blown up. Regards, TAR

Thread, On the infinite universe statement. I agree with Strange that the writer of the OP article may have heard that the universe may be infinite because we don't know that its not, and then mischaracterized this sentiment by stating it like a known fact. There are many things in cosmology that are established conventionally and things are taken "as if" this is true or that is true. There was, in the standard, accepted version of the Big Bang, a period of inflation in which the universe increased in extent in a faster than light manner. The exact mechanisms in play during this time are not specifically defined, and how fast and how far the universe extended during this period is simply not known. No way to get outside the event in a manner consistent with the ability to measure it. It could be 10 times larger than the Hubble sphere, or 1000 or a million billion times as large. Once in this area where only the conception is being challenged, or imagined, it is difficult to have superior information than the next guy, concerning the veracity of any statement of fact related to the status of things that are beyond our ability to check. Regards, TAR

Thread, I am wondering why I got neg reps on #34, without any description of the nature of the objections to the post. I have no way to argue a point in my own defense if the counter point is not described. Regards, TAR

Strange, I have no problem with lightning and thunder. It is the vast distances which we have no way to check, that cause me to hold an "unknown" model, in my head. The warped version as you call it. You say things remain largely unchanged , which might be alright for local stuff, but as you go out, the meaning of such a statement changes dramatically. A far away galaxy may appear to be on its first and second generation of stars, as we here are on our second and third generation. The metalicity of a far away galaxy is therefor not equivalent to a closer one, and all galaxies have had the time to be in the second and third generation of stars, if you count everything as currently present, even if we don't see it. So there are not galaxies at different ages. We see the universe that way, but its not true if you go by your most recent claims, that the star on its way to blue green, that should be blue green by now, is blue green. With that definition of true, there are no galaxies that are not exactly as old as this one. And that probably means that currently the galaxies of about the mass of the Milky Way are acting quite like this galaxy and building planets and solar systems quite like the ones here. So looking at distant galaxies and predicting the formation of more Earths in their future, is not notably helpful, because it would be more accurate to take what we see locally and just imagine it is currently like this everywhere. Regards, TAR

Ophiolite, On a sufficient scale, in a theoretical, imagination sense, it will look the same. However if you take actual observers and put them various places in the universe, they will see different things depending on whether they are in a black hole, or in a galaxy on in a void or on a planet or below the surface of a sun, on a beach at noon, or in their basement at night. It also depends on what wavelength of light or sound is being recorded, what the pixel count is, and what exposure time you are considering. And it matters whether you are looking this way or that way, all around, and whether you are looking in, or out. Regards, TAR Strange, It is blue-green, but we cannot prove it. We just imagine it to be blue-green. The evidence points to it being blue. Regards, TAR if you were searching the catalog and the skies for blue-green stars, you would not find it, it would not be true if you were searching the catalog and the skies for blue stars you would find it

Strange, I don't think you understand my issue. There is a logical requirement that a star that is 5 light years from Earth, actually exists now in a configuration that is putting out photons which we will see, on Earth in 5 years. And when we point our telescopes at the star we see a particular configuration which informs us of the configuration that that star was in five year ago. If the star was blue five years ago, on its way to blue green, it is blue green now. We see it as blue. We interpolate it to now be blue green. Which is a true statement? The star is blue. The star is blue green. Regards, TAR Strange, Consider the static on AM radio is reflective of lightning strikes all over the world. The particular cadence and duration of the static is unique, depending on your position. Same with the universe, and our Earthly vantage point. The universe intersects here and now. This is a different case on another planet. Regards, TAR