Religion, science and the concept of inifinity

[gareth]

It's very difficult to imagine this, but your analogy does help a little.

 

By the way, I found the analogy of the ant and the balloon in 'a brief history of time' very helpful.

 

I am unable to get my head around the phrase relating to pi and e: 'can't even be identified as specific points on the line, only points they lie next to'.

 

If we are to visualize the uncountable infinity lane, it would also be interesting to see prime numbers placed along the side of the road as 'milestones', with their values corresponding to the value in miles. If we were to drive down the road very fast, I wonder if the prime numbers that flashed by would eventualy reveal a pattern to us.

 

I can understand how pi has properties that could be considered infinite, but perhaps the secret to getting a handle on infinity lies in identifying prime number patterns.

[C1ay]

I am unable to get my head around the phrase relating to pi and e: 'can't even be identified as specific points on the line, only points they lie next to'.

 

Think of it like this. Pi is a point between 3.14 and 3.15. More precisely it is a point between 3.14159 and 3.14160. Even more precisely it is a point between 3.1415926535897932384626433832795 and 3.1415926535897932384626433832796. You can go on like this forever identifying points that lie on each side of pi but you can never identify the one point that is pi. The same is true for e and all irrational numbers.