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Full Idea
In a universe containing an infinite number of electrons would mass-energy be conserved? ...Electrons could come and go without affecting the total mass-energy.
Gist of Idea
If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy
Source
John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.6)
Book Ref
Heil,John: 'The Universe as We Find It' [OUP 2012], p.45
A Reaction
This seems to be a very persuasive reason for doubting that the universe contains an infinite number of electrons. In fact I suspect that infinite numbers have no bearing on nature at all. (Actually, I suspect them of being fictions).
Related Idea
Idea 18518 Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil]
| 8659 | The gods alone live forever with Shamash. The days of humans are numbered. [Anon (Gilg)] |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 5093 | Continuity depends on infinity, because the continuous is infinitely divisible [Aristotle] |
| 5095 | The heavens seem to be infinite, because we cannot imagine their end [Aristotle] |
| 8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
| 14032 | Totality has no edge; an edge implies a contrast beyond the edge, and there can't be one [Epicurus] |
| 14033 | Bodies are unlimited as well as void, since the two necessarily go together [Epicurus] |
| 22743 | Unlike Epicurus, Stoics distinguish the Whole from the All, with the latter including the void [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 5704 | There can be no centre in infinity [Lucretius] |
| 5703 | The universe must be limitless, since there could be nothing outside to limit it [Lucretius] |
| 4821 | An infinite line can be marked in feet or inches, so one infinity is twelve times the other [Spinoza] |
| 18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
| 9635 | Given atomism at one end, and a finite universe at the other, there are no physical infinities [Brown,JR] |
| 20469 | There are probably no infinities, and 'infinite' names what we do not yet know [Rovelli] |