Concepts of Infinitely Small
April 12th, 2006
Written By: Adam Sussman
Every morning I eat breakfast while watching the Science Channel and today there was an episode on black holes and the universe. That led me to start daydreaming in the car ride to the office this morning about the concepts of Infinitely Small.
I am starting to get a handle on some of the various theories of black holes. Take a matter 100 million million times greater then our sun and compress it to a size of a small piece of dust. If space was laid out like a trampoline, this dust particle would press so deep into the trampoline fabric all other objects on it would be destined to fall into its indentation.
Basically this is one of Einstein’s theories of how gravity works.
So today I think I understand how not even light can escape the gravitational force of a black hole. The gravitational force is so infinitely large it breaks apart the smallest of smalls as it enters the black holes center.
But I am still struggling with the idea of Infinitely Small. I was focusing on one question for about 45 min today. Where does all the stuff go when it falls into a black hole?
In an effort to try to solve this, I had to ask myself a new question.
It’s completely theoretical but I thought, “Imagine the smallest possible thing”. (My mind is not capable of actually thinking of such a small object, but I just picture the word “small” in my mind).
Now that I have an image of the smallest possible thing in my mind, could I split that in half? Sure I can and theoretically I could keep splitting that in half many times over.
So, if black matter is the end result of all matter that falls into a black hole, then black matter should be something right? Theoretically we should be able to split that in half? And if it is something, where does it go?
April 12th, 2006 11:27
Apparently even space is quantized:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_length
Smallest possible length
April 12th, 2006 14:06
[…] Infinitely Small - thoughts on black matter, small objects, and deep space. […]
April 13th, 2006 21:42
Tried to follow that wikipedia article… if something gets smaller than the plank lenght, must it turn into energy?
September 17th, 2006 21:41
The only infinitely small thing I know is the humans ability to understand the universe. We can no more explain the universe than a person stuck in a room with one window for there entire life could explain the world outside.
June 30th, 2007 05:25
You should stop watching the Science Channel, programs there are designed to impress the viewer, not make him understand anything (an art Brian Greene has refined to perfection, he didn’t get enough attention from his parents as a child). The less the viewer understands, the more fantastic the universe is, and the dumber is everyone who didn’t watch that program, making the viewer feel clever about himself.
Not that the universe isn’t fantastic, but that’s not something you deserve to have an idea about until you accept that time, space and sizes are infinite in all directions. Any other premise for looking at existence is either stupid or ludacris. Learning physics doesn’t explain why anything is, only how. So if the why is your motive, you should dive into the Bible (the anti-infinite manifest for insect brains). Asking why anything exist is like asking why 1+1 is 4. It’s an invalid question, a logical loop; Any answer can be attacked with the same question.
February 17th, 2008 18:36
…..And to top it all off 99.9999999999999 percent of everything is nothing. There is nothing here but forces
February 17th, 2008 19:59
In this light the Big Bang, and a black hole (everything from nothing, and a portion of everything into nothing) become easier to wrap your head around.
I am sitting at my computer and the distance between me and the screen is about 2 feet. If I could shrink myself one trillion orders of magnatude smaller would I still only be 2 feet from the screen?
February 26th, 2008 00:58
Jonathan, correct and correct. And wouldn’t even know it worked.
chris M, maybe you have one window but a few people, like everyone working on particle collider projects, are in a glass rooms with telescopes.