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Author Topic:   Can anything exist for an infinite time or outside of time?
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 158 (555989)
04-16-2010 4:11 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee
04-15-2010 11:48 AM


Infinite time.
Jumped Up Chimpanzee writes:
Surely if time goes infinitely back, and something had always existed, it would never get to any point in the future. It couldn’t, because it would have to wait for an infinite amount of time to get to any point in the future.
So it seems impossible to me that anything could have always existed. It seems that everything, including time, must have a beginning.
Just to answer this question, there is nothing in the current laws of physics to suggest that something can't live arbitrarily long into the future.
As for having an arbitrarily long past, well there is nothing in the laws of physics to suggest that can't happen either. It can't happen in our universe because our universe is not infinitely long in the past direction. However this isn't a logical consequence of General Relativity or Quantum Field Theory, it's just a feature of our universe.
Of course it could be that a later theory of physics will have our universe's finite past as a logical consequence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 04-15-2010 11:48 AM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by slevesque, posted 04-16-2010 4:28 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 8 of 158 (556003)
04-16-2010 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by slevesque
04-16-2010 4:28 PM


Re: Infinite time
slevesque writes:
I would add however that anything that has an end must have a beginning, because if it is to end, then if it had an infinite past then it would have ended an infinite time ago.
That's also not necessarily the case. For instance in General Relativity it is possible for a particle to live forever in the past direction and at some finite time in the future have its "life" end by falling into a black hole. It sounds bizarre though and of course it's can't happen in our universe, but Quantum Field Theory and General Relativity don't logically forbid it.
slevesque writes:
I also noticed you say ''arbitrarily long past'' instead of infinite, any reason why ?
Yes, nicely spotted. Basically because it's a more accurate way of saying what is going on. At any arbitrary point in the past the object still exists, no matter how far in the past you look. This avoids the confusion usually associated with infinity and is basically the mathematical notion used in General Relativity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by slevesque, posted 04-16-2010 4:28 PM slevesque has not replied

  
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