“I love you to the moon”

“I love you to the moon and back”

“I love you to the end of the universe”

“Well then, I love you to the end of the universe and back again”

(approximately taken from Guess How Much I Love You, Sam McBratney)

Does infinity exist? “1/0=∞”, “You can trace the number 8 or 0 as many times as you like and you will never come to an end”, “take the limit as x→∞”, “you can keep adding 1 to the previous whole number and you will keep getting a new number”, “computer programs can iterate indefinitly” … “infinity exists”.

But does it? Do we have any physical proof of an infinite thing? Yes we can see that an exponential function should keep increasing exponentially, but if we made it a physical object, say we drew it on paper, one day we would run out of paper, we would run out of trees, we would run out of space, and if we did indeed run out into space would we be able to keep drawing? And if we cannot exactly prove that an infinite physical thing exists, then should we believe in infinity at all?

Another example a computer program. We are told that it could run forever but, run it for a while and your computer might go to sleep, it might break down, it might get a bug. I do not exactly know how computers work, but I do not believe that they are indestructible machines. Daily wear and tear happens to everything. Even if the computer did work perfectly, it would use energy, and at some point all the available energy would be used up.  All the energy in the world, our solar system, what we know of the universe could be considered finite. We can draw a circle around it. If you take a triangle and fill it with ever smaller circles the area of all the circles combined will almost be the same as the area of the triangle. Sum it up, that is what we see. All of the complicated things specific to the world could be summed up by saying that they exist in the world. Say: this is what we know, right here, right now. If we can name things, if we do name things. Then where does this concept of infinity come from? Why do we believe in it if we see no physical evidence? If infinity is just that,  just something in the mind. Then why have we never found, the edge of the universe? <3