Back to Home

God & Science Forum Message

Forums: Atm · Astrophotography · Blackholes · Blackholes2 · CCD · Celestron · Domes · Education
Eyepieces · Meade · Misc. · God and Science · SETI · Software · UFO · XEphem
RSS Button

Home | Discussion Forums | God and Science | Post
Login

Be the first pioneers to continue the Astronomy Discussions at our new Astronomy meeting place...
The Space and Astronomy Agora
It Just Starts At A Reference Point

Forum List | Follow Ups | Post Message | Back to Thread Topics | In Response To
Posted by Richard Ruquist on July 9, 2001 23:37:28 UTC

You have the right idea that to measure time yopu have to start somewhere. What Alexander called the reference point. But if the there is no limit to going back in the past, trhen you will never find a beginning.

Lets say we start at the instant of time called year 2,000 and go backwards. Eventually we get to zero. But of course we know that time existed before then. So then we start counting negatively. We may use the symbol B.C.E. or BC instead of a negative sign, but it's all the samething. As we go back in time, the negative numbers just get larger and larger. We never reach a beginning of time, we just keep going back further and further. Where ever we get to , there is always a finite amount of time between now and then, but there is always time before where we got to.

That is how mathematicians handle infinity- as a limit to a finite process. So if we use logic in a mathematical way on time, we are always talking about a finite amountof time, and then just thinking that the finite amount of time gets larger andf larger. With mathematics you cannot start at infinity, as you are trying to do, you can only end up there as a limiting process.

Your mistake is to nstart at infinity. According to math that is illogical in itself. Actually thet call it ill defined, same thing. So are ytou finally enlightened about infinity?

Follow Ups:

Login to Post
Additional Information
Google
 
Web www.astronomy.net
DayNightLine
About Astronomy Net | Advertise on Astronomy Net | Contact & Comments | Privacy Policy
Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2024 John Huggins All Rights Reserved
Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post.
"dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET"
are trademarks of John Huggins