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Single Idea 5703

[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature ]

Full Idea

The universe is not bounded in any direction. If it were, it would necessarily have a limit somewhere, but a thing cannot have a limit unless there is something outside to limit it.

Gist of Idea

The universe must be limitless, since there could be nothing outside to limit it

Source

Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.959)

Book Ref

Lucretius: 'On the Nature of the Universe', ed/tr. Latham,Ronald [Penguin 1951], p.55

A Reaction

This is a subtler argument than the mere enquiry about why you would have to stop at the end of the universe. It still seems a nice argument, though Einstein's curvature of space seems to have thwarted it.

The 14 ideas with the same theme [time or space or matter could be infinite]:

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]