A sphere shaped universe would be called "infinite", because you can move infinitely along any line. The reason it's not a true infinite would be that you would eventually pass your starting point again.

because they do not know... maybe someday they will. but everything we have been discussing has been a guess at best. thats why i say that no one right now can say for sure that the universe in not infinite.
improbable, yes, impossible, no.

Spider, I really dont want to start a pissing match, but the more I actually look into cosmological models the more I think you just have not spent enough time reading them to be as certain as you seem to be.

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html

Maybe that is just my own ignorance, but several models that are considered accurate based on all available data are infinite.

Again different kinds of infinities are at work here than what I wager is being argued over.
The title is:
Will the Universe expand forever? ie will it expand infinitely. Context context!

This jives with what I have been reading by Laurence Krauss and what I read years ago in college.

If space can be stretched infinitely (in a flat universe) as the universe expands into infinity, then the universe is both spatially, and temporally infinite.

In college I read a book all about the cardinality of infinity, I was convinced I had it all figured out . . . for about 10 minutes then I confused my self again.

Regardless of understanding many higher maths require subtracting infinities to get real numbers. It works. PFM it might be, but it works.

Perfect is perfect. A perfect thing can't produce anything imperfect.

If the world was perfect at the time of Adam n Eve in the garden, then by definition it was impossible for that world to become imperfect. A perfect thing can't produce anything imperfect -- that's in the definition of perfect. Like god in his perfection produced a perfect world.

If the world became imperfect, then the seed of imperfection must have been planted, and the thing that planted the imperfection must have been itself imperfect.

God was the real original creator. If his design and creation contained imperfection, or its derivatives (the then future shape of the world) contained imperfection, then he himself, god, was not perfect to begin with.

This is an iterative model. To have imperfection borne in a perfect system is not possible. Therefore only imperfection can produce more imperfection. Everything derives from god. God can't be perfect, therefore. If he were, we would still live in a perfect universe.

is the universe infinite?

Cartesian three-dimensional space is infinite.

The known universe is a sphere of about 165 Billion light years in diameter.

There is universe beyond the 165 BLY limit. We don`t know what's beyond there. That's where it stops, the universe we can have knowledge of.

It is silly to call the known universe all the universe. I wish people would prefix it. they don't, because it sounds too ante-mediaeval-ish. ("He offered me the known world, and all the gold I could eat.")

So we use the word "universe" and we all interpret it to mean anything we like. This has not always been so. It's a new, about 30-40 years old phenomenon only in the vernacular of common English.

The known universe, the part of infinite space which we can observe (at least that some of us can observe -- I, personally, can't) is by definition fininte. The entire space is infinite. There is a lot of wriggle room in the part of the universe which is defined as (infinity) minus (finite amount).

When you think about large and small and infinity... and the possibilities, how do we know there is no creator?

(some mad scientist in some giant reality)

This world could be a computer program projecting a holographic universe.

We could be an entire self supporting organism/universe inside of some test tube in some other giant self supporting organism/universe.

We could be a passing thought in the mind of some homeless guy passed out in the street in some other gigantic universe.

We could be one of an infinite number of parallel dream worlds.

Lets stop pretending we know anything and arguing about petty details.

Lets just be amazed that we are here, and alive.

This is grade seven stuff. There are infinite number of points that can be located in a cartesian coordinate system on any length of non-zero length of line or line segment, and also on any on-zero planar area.

Please take this nonsense back that there are only a finite number of points on a pool table. This is pitiful to read this.

I further reject your claim that according to the plank space there are no positions possible beteen the end points of a plank space. Yes, there are more positions. Pick a point on the table; go north 1 plank space; turn right 91 degrees, go one plank space; turn right again 178 degrees and go one plank space; you will find yourself in a spot between the starting point and the next point in our journey one plank space away, which is by definition less than one plank space away form the starting point.

If you expect people to believe that you know what you are talking about, it would be best if you spelled Planck right.

Good question, very good question. I don't know if there is no creator, and I don't know if there is a creator. I just beleive there is no creator. I won't argue with those who believe there is a creator. Their claim I can't touch. It's a matter of faith.

What you asked was right. Small and large infinities give us no indication if a creator exists and is responsible for the world.

A few things we can know, however, if we assume the creator exists. For instance, we know the creator is not perfect. We know that because we also know that perfection can't produce imperfection (and Spider said that is so, he supported this with saying that the world was perfect after creation was finished); and also because we know that the world is not perfect now. So the creator was not perfect, and the bible's teaching that the world was just exactly perfect at the time of creation is a necessarily false claim. If it was perfect, it could not have lost its perfection.

Very convenient, to reject an entire and valid argument on the basis of a misspelling.

Congratulations. Ignoring reason and sticking to rote memory stuff and sticking to tradition despite reason is the mainline method of operation of the church.

You will make a good Pope one day. I wish you will.

Just please don't feel so superior only because you spotted a spelling mistake. And more importantly, don't claim victory at a debate because you feel you have the right to reject an argument because of a spelling mistake.

who created the creator?

We can only observe 46 Billion light years in any direction, so how could we determine the universe was a sphere that is 168 Billion light years in diameter? You are so full of it. Your posts are just smoke and bluster without any useful information.

No, I rejected your argument, because it was total BS. I was simply suggesting that it would be more believable if your lies included the correct name of the scientist.

I expect people to believe what I say because I say things that can be checked by reason or by research.

I don't expect people to believe me because they figure I know what I am talking about. That would be in the realm of ad hominem arguments. "He knows what he talks about. He is an expert. We believe him". This I don't want. I expect people to beleive me because they can hopefully trace an equal-sided triangle and see that the base of the triangle can be different in length from the sides. THIS I expect. If you can't follow this, then please tell me, and we stop the argument.

If you only argue with people who you think, on some preconceived notion, or because of their reputation, or because yet some other unrelated and illogical line of reasoning reassures you of it, that they know what they are talking about, then I shut up and don't talk to you, as that would be futile.

i like ya spider, but you did post this first, before wux was here...

1) The article I referenced was wrong, I freely admit that.
2) 156 <> 165
3) I did not state that the observable universe is a sphere. The observable universe appears to be flat.

I quoted you directly, Spider. Read the above. I transposed two figures. (The 5 and the 6.)

I assert this: you are going psycho. You can so not accept that you can be wrong, that if I say something that you had said, and I don't put there that you had said this, then in your temporary madness of anger you call me an idiot for calling a fact that you yourself have stated, and callme an idiot because you attribute the fact to me, and me alone.

This was YOUR fact. If you have the gall to call me an imbecile, it reflects on you, because the fact I quoted was first shown to me by YOU, some one page before.

Spider, this reminds me of a discussion of ours way back when, in which you did the same thing. You called me an idiot for saying something that you yourself had said first.

History is repeating itself.

I state this, with full awareness of my legal responsibilities for stating this opinion of you: You are not capable to admit to defeat, in a debate where only logic and facts count. You lose your better judgement, and then soon after you lose your short-term or medium-term memory. In my opinion your ego protects itself by decrying the debating opponent when you run out of debating points. You argue then points that are not at all germain to the discussion, and you pepper your irrelevant arguments with personal insults.

This at the time it first happened, I did not want to put up with any more. Now I wish to put up with this even less. I wish you would learn the art of losing an argument gracefully.

That's all.

A direct quote wouldn't have transposed two digits and wouldn't have stated that the observable universe is a sphere.



Going? Already there man.



I didn't call you an idiot, but don't let that stop you from whining about it.



You misquoted me. 156 != 165. They are different numbers.



I'll have to take your word for that, I don't remember that incident.



History has a way of doing that.



What are your legal responsibilities?



Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.



Thanks.

Just because this is possible to imagine, does not mean that its possible to do. Just because it would 'make sense' to us with our macro-scale intuition that this must be true, doesn't make it true.

It seems very possible to me that the existence of a single atom places restrictions on the set of all possible placements of a second atom, due to the requirements of discrete energy levels.