h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've heard it said that Zero and the Infinite are very similar, and this is how I veiw the similarity to be. If there is a zero amount of piglets present (in my bedroom as of 10pm this evening - I think), then there is infinately zero piglets in that vacinity, at that time. However, if one could conceive of there being an infinite amount of piglets in my bedroom at 10pm this evening (perhaps the structure of the universe has become ustable over my bed, and has somehow allowed piglet after piglet - to an infinite amount, and not the mathematical definition of infinite, i.e. a very high number, I mean a real infinite, the kind that makes people go, ooh, er... um, I'll have to think about that one - to be created in an instant, thus creating a - dare I say it - pink hole in my room. I realize that this would require that the new laws of physics arising from this circumstance explain perfectly well how one is able to get an infinite mass of room temperature matter condensed into an area the size of my bedroom, but try to ignore that point for the time being) then one could comment on how my room (or a portion of my room at least) contained a Zero amount of anything but piglets.
So, to summerise, if something is infinitely small, then it is safe to consider it zero. If something is infinitely big, then there is a zero amount of everything else.
The question then is, do either really exist, or has zero (not unlike the concept of ownership) just leapt up as a response to there being (somewhat ironically) a hole in our, very subjectively based, language systems?

No.

You can have nothing of anything (indeed nothing of everything) if you want but you can't have an infinite amount of anything - there just isn't room.

F

If something is infinitely small, it is infinitesimal. It is not safe to call it zero. Something is only zero if it is nonexistent.

Can I have one of those pink ones?

Dam thats purplexing,

Infinate isnt a number, it is a statement of a number that is too large to even consist,

How can you say 0 is nothing? Were talking in mathes... explain to me what -15 is if 0 is nothing.

Ah well, it all depends on context. A negative quantity of something can't exist in any real sense; it's usually used to represent a deficit of something, or an amount owed. For example, if I have minus fifty thousand pounds in my bank account, I'm in a lot of trouble and someone will be round to remove my kneecaps in short order.

I've puzzled over zero in an amateur sort of way. Imagine the story of two trains. They are 10 miles apart and are both travelling towards one another at 20 miles per hour. A fly leaves the windscreen of train A and zoots towards train B as fast as it's little wings will take it (actually 40 MPH in this puzzle - superfast fly, eh?) it gets to train B and instantly heads back to train A. It continues this back and forth journey until the two trains collide. How far has the fly travelled?

Now If you want I can tell you how to solve it quite quickly but my real issue with the question (and other similar questions) is when the fly arrives at a train does its speed drop to zero before becoming a minus speed (going in the opposite direction)? It must do. In which case it has travelled at all of the speeds between 40 and 0 before resuming movement in the opposite direction.

I used to think in terms of an object travelling in a perfect circle. You view it from above and it's always travelling at the same speed. However if you begin to change your view and see it more from the side it becomes and ellipse and, to your eye, the object accelerates and decelerates as it moves from or gets to the more pointed bits of the shape. If you see it completely from the side I think there would be a momentary stop (as it reaches the tangent) at the opposite ends of what looks like a straight line.

Do you think this is relevant or do I need medical help?

Hi Vestboy,

If both trains are doing 20mph they have a closing speed of 40mph and will cover the 10 miles in 15 minutes. Ignoring the speeding up and slowing down bits of the fly's journey; at 40mph the fly will cover 10 miles in the 15 minutes before the impact.

Each time the fly reaches the front of a train it will have a closing speed of 50mph with the train. Relative to the train it will decelerate to zero as it reaches the windscreen but relative to the ground it will decelerate to zero then accelerate in the reverse direction to 10mph.

The circle analogy is a really good one but if we apply the deceleration and acceleration effects to the fly it makes the maths much more complicated.

This is almost relevant but I suspect you do need medical help and I doubt you will get it.

F

Sorry,

"Each time the fly reaches the front of a train it will have a closing speed of 50mph with the train. Relative to the train it will decelerate to zero as it reaches the windscreen but relative to the ground it will decelerate to zero then accelerate in the reverse direction to 10mph."

Should obviously read:

Each time the fly reaches the front of a train it will have a closing speed of 60mph with the train. Relative to the train it will decelerate to zero as it reaches the windscreen but relative to the ground it will decelerate to zero then accelerate in the reverse direction to 20mph.

F

Something occured to me about the relationship between 0 and the infinite, or at least, relative to the way I perceive their relationship to be. Could the infinite be conceived as -0 (negative zero, or the opposite of zero - perhaps), which would allow zero to then be described as -infinity. Just a wee silly niggle I thought I'd add.

I thought I could cope with the idea of infinity and then I read the ing article about a googol.
I think the idea of zero or nothing is quite difficult to comprehend. We can manage it with things like how many pink pigs etc. but what of "absolute" zero. Nothing existing at all. Think of the universe. OK. Now think of not the universe.

One use of zero is as a marker for the spot between positive and negative numbers. Anything higher than it is positive anything lower is negative. This makes it fit into the relational discussion of whether things are more or less than other things. Absolute zero couldn't be a marker on a road somewhere could it.

Oh look here's the nice lady with my tablets and a water bottle.

Well well well, if it isn't ol' Vesty. Long time no see.

Absolute Zero isn't actually nothing existing, it's the temperature (-273°C, or zero Kelvin) at which everything stops moving. Stuff still exists, but only in a boring-Sunday-afternoon sort of way.

I might be wrong about the -273, by the way.

Hi Rojo, I know about Zero K. That's why I put inverted commas around my "Absolute" because I didn't mean the temperature. But thinking about nothing is very difficult for us because we always think of nothing when we actually are thinking of lots of space - which is clearly lots of something called space. To think of nothing with nothing around it is quite a challenge isn't it.

Nurse - the medication is wearing off!

Actually, I have a techique that allows me to think of nothing quite easily between the hours of 0900 and 1700 each day ...

Does it involve a pay cheque once a month?

A curious way to link zero and the infinite is to imagine them in terms of work achieved and pay given. It is perhaps not difficult to imagine the results of a survey indicating that a large majority of the population would rather zero work for infinite pay than infinite work for zero pay. Sadly, however, this example doesn't quite show that zero and the infinite are reasonable descriptors of the universe around us, as both work and pay are notions carried only by those who subject themselves to pay and work. But if anyone can suggest a more suitable analogy...

Vestboy, what's the name of your doctor?

E Vibenstein... I think.
By the way infinite money is worthless.
"I want all the money in the world!"
"OK! You've got it."
Q: What is everyone else getting by with?
Who would want to rely on what only one person in the world has? It would be replaced by something else.

Addendum to previous post: Economists already calculate that there is several times more money in circulation than the monetary value of everything that can be bought.

How about I want to live for ever but never wait for anything?

That's called inflation. The economy is one big lilo

Interesting stuff.

I love these geekoforums.

Anyway, I wanted to throw in a similarity from a slightly different perspective.

Just think about the symbols used to represent these non-quantities.

Zero 0 Infinity ∞

Imagine you are a little beetle walking around the zero. You can keep going forever.

Similarly with the infinity symbol, you can walk to +infinity and if you keep going you inevitably end up back at the origin(zero) and if you keep going you can go to -infinity and keep looping round.

Assuming you are so small you don't know if you are walking around either symbol, you would experience the samething, you never go anywhere.

Infinity is much like the ying yang symbol. When you reach the limit of one side(e.g. white bit) you come across the black bit. Again you loop round to the place you started.

So, the ying yang is the amalgamation of zero and infinty.

Imagine that you could travel to the end of the universe in one direction (for arguments sake) towards +infinity, you will eventually find that you are returning to the place you started moving away from -infinity