Documentary examining current ideas about very large numbers and infinity in regards to mathematics and the observable universe.
By our third year, most of us will have learned to count. Once we know how, it seems as if there would be nothing to stop us counting forever.
But, while infinity might seem like an perfectly innocent idea, keep counting and you enter a paradoxical world where nothing is as it seems.
Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last.
And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you.
Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity.
March 14, 2011 at 2:29 am | Ellie
To be or not to be…infinite or not infinite..this doc is fun and amazing…
By the way, I say infinite…
b
March 14, 2011 at 2:34 am | Ellie
ps…ignore the dangling ‘b’ at the end of my statement above..it was an unintentional key stroke…
March 15, 2011 at 2:03 pm | بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
by the dangling b do you mean p
the end is better than the beginning
sorry for any mistaeks in this messaej
BELIEVE
March 15, 2011 at 7:04 am | Dean
This is such a great documentary!
March 15, 2011 at 1:26 pm | Dexter
Loved it! Very well done and informative. A perfect blend of art and science. The way a good doc should be.
March 17, 2011 at 3:49 am | BPM
Interesting subject. So overly dramatic it was comical.
March 20, 2011 at 1:39 am | Salamander
Seriously, what BPM said. Can you get any more sensationalist than this?
It’s interesting to think about but it’s not OMG stop everything life changingly interesting. Jeez chill the hell out you crazy Brits!
April 12, 2011 at 2:01 am | Paul
on the contrary it has changed lives, ruined them even. The gravity of the implications that “infinity” presses into the universe is astronomical. If the universe is infinite then there is a god or gods in an infinite amount of multiverses, and at the same time there is absolutely no god in an infinite amount of universes. This alone, among an infinite amount of other implications, should be enough to make you question everything. Perhaps, as your name implies, your small amphibious mind can’t process just how nerve racking the whole thing should be.
June 5, 2011 at 9:21 pm | thekingbeyondthegate
You call us “Brits” “crazy” and “sensationalist”. Have you see your news channels? In fact, have you seen your politicians? I think perhaps that as Confusius would say: ‘Don’t complain about snow on your neighbours roof when your own doorstep is unclean.’ I’m making the assumption that you’re American but I think it is an apt one from your use of “brits”. Hypocrisy is just irritating because it displays flawed logic.
March 20, 2011 at 6:56 pm | Bill Dansky
To my primitive brain, space HAS to be infinite. Just like how we know numbers are infinite because we can always add 1 to the “biggest” number, we can similarly add the space beyond the perceived edge of space.
This documentary has shown me how truly unevolved our species is and how frustrating it is to be contemplate matters that are beyond our ability to comprehend.
Maybe our salvation will come in the form of a computer capable of programming itself to increase its intelligence far beyond our own who will then manage to dumb down its findings in a way the we can grasp.
What a curse it is to be just smart enough to know how dumb we are!
March 27, 2011 at 9:01 pm | Appp
what’s with the super creepy host?
March 27, 2011 at 9:01 pm | Appp
what’s with the super creepy host?
June 5, 2011 at 9:36 pm | thekingbeyondthegate
Obviously infinity to some extent is a number. I think, however, that treating infinity more like a number than a concept is what creates a lot of the logical paradoxes.