"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Albert Einstein)

Despite his doubt, ►Einstein was probably right about the infinitude of the ►universe. He may have erred, however, about human stupidity. Stupidity is generally regarded as the absence of wisdom, and therefore has to end with its complete absence and cannot, strictly speaking, be infinite. Nonetheless - on these pages you will find, along with numerous facts concerning ►infinity, ►unboundedness, and ►eternity, the first mathematical proof of the existence of ►infinite stupidity.

What's the Use of Infinity?

You won't encounter the idea of infinity when studying stock prices or collecting beer mats. Indeed, you can get by entirely without it in your daily routine. Nonetheless, infinity is a serious matter. For as soon as you happen to lift your head to look beyond the confines of everyday life, it will jump right into your face.

Perhaps the idea of infinity originated with the first human being who stared into the ►night sky trying to imagine what further spaces there might be beyond the most distant stars: Does a new sky begin where this sky ends? Does outer space have a limit somewhere? Does time have a beginning and an end? Such questions initiated a cognitive process that eventually produced our technological age with its ►computers, ►nuclear power stations, and ►space probes.

Even our inner world of imagination is populated with infinities. And they, too, begin with questions. Where do we go after death? Where were we prior to birth? Why do we exist? There has hardly ever been a human culture that did not entertain some belief in an ►afterlife or in the existence of a ►god understood as eternal, infinitely ►powerful, and ►omniscient. Many cultures developed additional ideas about infinity; for example, our present-day mathematics acknowledges not only infinite series of ►numbers but also an infinite number of ►levels of infinity.

Thus, we encounter infinity everywhere: in reality and in imagination, in this world and in the hereafter, in physics, cosmology, number theory, logic, philosophy, religion and art -- and now, as you can see, even on the internet.

This encyclopedia consists of concise articles covering all aspects of infinity in the natural sciences, mathematics, philosophy, and religion. The encyclopedia is constantly updated. Each article can be accessed by clicking on one of the key words in the menu on the left. The current material would comprise about 350 book pages if it were in printed matter. If you notice any error, please point it out in the ►forum, or email me. I also encourage you to use the forum for suggestions, recommendations of new texts, and simply for discussion of texts or articles. And if you would like to find out how much you already know about infinity, why don't you take our ►infinity quiz?

Stealing from this Website...

...is permitted, but please observe the following conditions. Copy text from this website only for non-commercial use (e.g., homework or presentations for school). You may also display text from this website on your private homepage if you do not change the content and add a link to ►dictionary.of-the-infinite.net underneath the text. If you wish to provide links to one or another of these pages you will find the respective URL in the status line of your browser when you move your mouse over the key word menu. Otherwise, commercial use or distribution of the contents of this website in altered or unaltered form is permitted only with written consent of the owner. For disclaimer see ►Legal Notice.

Ten years later

One should think that human knowledge about the infinite does not change significantly in a period of 10 years. And yet it did, apparently. I had created this website in 2005, still in solid HTML without WordPress or CMS. Since then a lot has changed, not only in the web, but also in physics and mathematics. Approximately 10% of the articles and information collected here are slightly outdated. This means work. My own interests have shifted from infinity to more prosaic, not to say financial areas - but I hereby vow to bring this site up to date. Eventually. Even before 2025.

jcl

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