Is the universe really infinite? “Here you learn the answer …
“Space – the final frontier …” -. With these words began the German-language bias of the tv series Star Trek
. As a matter of course, the authors of the space saga went out of infinite space? But how do we know that the universe is infinite What’s infinity? the term refers to the opposite of infinity finite.
The infinite in the sense of the non finite is difficult to understand people for us and is mainly associated with unlimited lengths. In this context. it was initially the seas and oceans, by the people of earlier eras as “infinite” classified. If we now know that the waters encircle our globe, then that is true even. The spherical shape knows no beginning and no end.
In contrast, the individual seas and oceans have been designated by the people and defined the extent and size: The Atlantic Ocean extends between North and South America on one aspect and Europe and Africa on the opposite aspect.
The Pacific has been defined between Asia and America.The while water flows from one ocean to the other and makes our earth those blue planet, as we know it from the photos from space here. the infinity in mathematics.
Mathematics knows the term infinity in various disciplines. These different infinities are sometimes very not vivid and prepare non-mathematicians therefore difficulties. In fact, makes the mathematics generally no statements about what is infinity in reality. Here only rules for manipulating symbols are placed.
The mathematical symbol of infinity is the lemniscate (), a lying on the side 8. The symbol become added by means of the English mathematician John Wallis in 1655 as a sign of an abstract infinite size. It was originally used as a symbol for the number 1000 in ancient Rome. the infinity in religion.
One other interpretation according to which the lemniscate () originated from the little lying (Theta), the first letter of God (Theos). In theology and some philosophical conceptions infinity is one of the attributes of God, during the creation as such is finite.
The Infinity in astronomy Given the depth and breadth of the night sky, astronomers have developed the idea of an infinitely extended space. also in connection with the terms Big Bang (the beginning of the visible universe) and Black hole . a singularity is a point in space-time, in on the ground . is concentrated an unextended point of infinite density .
It was the astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt. who found the key to the infinity of the universe , the luminosity of the star as she stocked in 1912 the star by brightness and period, she managed a discovery: There seemed as if stars that flickered in short rhythm, fainter than those with a long period. Because all of the investigated stars are equidistant from the earth, the brightness of the sky reflected against the true luminosities. It can astronomers close inversely to the distances. Leavitt discovered the period- luminosity relation for Cepheids and thus found the key to measure the universe. Unimaginable distances In 1923 measure Edwin Hubble with the Cepheid method for the first time the distance to a faraway galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy.
Before these discoveries could be expected only with distances up to 100 light-years, then put away as 10 million light years no longer a problem. based on Leavitt’s findings could first prove that behind the Milky Way are other countless galaxies that would point to a tremendous expansion of the universe Edwin Hubble. whether the universe is truly infinite, or whether it somewhere actually are an end point, we now know (yet) not. Maybe our universe is spherical and has therefore neither a beginning nor an end. If you are interested in stars and space. be sure to check it out the “what is What” quantity 6 “The Star” at. Or tape 16 “planets and Space ” Or tape 102″ cosmos ” text: RR, stand: 7. 2. 2011 pictures: NASA
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