The infinite inspiration

Infinity is a very fancy word, isn't it? Many corporations use the term as part of their branding strategies. Many scientific paradigms rely on the concept of infinity for their descriptions. It's almost inseparable from art. Yet, what does the very term actually mean? Without bounds? Without limits? Unending? Indeed all these point to it. But for someone trying to understand infinity, I thought it's better to tell him what it is rather than what it isn't it. So let's attempt to explain what it is.

In our bid to explain infinity, probably we'd be better served by tracing the evolution that our own understanding of the term undergoes right from the time that we first encounter it. So, when do we first get introduced to the concept of infinity in our lives? Quite obviously, it should be in primary school mathematics, isn't it? As we get to know the natural numbers 1,2,3..., we are told that the series never ends and 'infinity' represents the never ending sea of bigger numbers that we'd encounter if we were to count forever. A little later into high school we are told that anything divided by zero becomes infinite. I have never really fully understood what dividing by zero means? If at all dividing by zero is going to give you an entity as a result, be it 'infinity' or whatever, then zero multiplied by that entity should get you back the original number right? What? Multiplying zero to get a number? I thought zero is going to stay zero if you multiply it i.e., add it to itself once, twice,.... a trillion times or yeah, an 'infinite' number of times.

0 + 0 + 0 + ......... (infinity) should equal 0, isn't it? Before we can assert that, can we ever complete the calculation on the left side? Indeed the fastest of supercomputers is going to work on finding the sum on the left side for eternity. So while we know that zero is not going to get any bigger how many ever times you add itself to it, we are not able to assert that the statement in the previous paragraph is false since we are not in a position to complete the calculation on the left hand side of the above equation. Ah! we are beginning to see the profundity of the eight letter term that we are discussing. If at all we were to prove that anything divided by zero can't possibly yield infinity, we'd probably be shaking up the foundations of mathematics! Little surprise that celebrated men in history like Zeno craftily used the idea behind the conception to dish out uncanny paradoxes that are now world famous.

Mathematics indeed does well to introduce us to infinity with a well defined set of rules around it. But is it really our first encounter with the concept? We, or at least most of us, actually get a feel for the idea even before we first set foot in school. As we complete 1 or 2 years from the time we appear in this world as an infant, the idea behind the eight letter term reaches us when we are told at home about a still bigger three letter term (oxymorons are expected when we ponder on something like this). The three letter term is 'God'. Irrespective of the faith that we may adhere to, what is the typical definition of God that we get to hear when we are told about Him for the first time by possibly our parents? A super being who is so powerful that he is capable of doing anything at will...who is present everywhere and knows everything......who always does what is morally right and consequently favours people who do the right things.....who is compassionate in general....who is capable of delivering you out of any kind of trouble or problem....who punishes the wrong doers and consequently invokes the fear of being punished if at all we were to tread the path of committing sinful activities. You are probably beginning to see that the definition borders on the idea of infinite power. We should consider ourselves fortunate that we are told about 'God' when we are about 2 or 3 years old. The state of consciousness is unalloyed at this stage and hence we are able to absorb the idea quite readily and retain it for the rest of our lifetimes. If we were to grow all the way upto being 20 years of age without any introduction to the idea of divinity, we'd probably have a hard time understanding who 'God' is, if we were told about Him at that age. We'd probably be thinking about Him in terms of someone who can travel faster than an airplane (or maybe faster than light if you are scientifically inclined), someone who is more capable than a Superman or a Spiderman, someone who is bigger and stronger than the dinosaurs, someone who is capable of composing better tunes than Mozart, someone who is capable of time travel and consequently can travel between the past and the future at will. Yet these conceptual ideas get nowhere near the conception of 'God' that a 2 year old forms when he is first told about God.

Having seen Infinity from the mathematical and theological perspectives, is there more to it beyond these abstract conceptions? Is there something more 'real' about infinity? (This certainly isn't to say God isn't real for I do firmly believe in divinity as that's the only way the miraculous wonder called Life can be explained.) What I'm trying to ask is that is it possible to perceive infinity as part of the observable physical reality around us? That could well turn out to be a search in vain as just about everything that constitutes the physical reality around us is finite in nature. Not surprising, since a physical object, by definition, is got to be finite in nature whether you're considering its dimensions, colour or whatever. If it's red in colour, it's got to be of a particular shade of red. In fact, human mind, by its very nature, can have only finite perceptions. It's these finite objects that help us have a perception of physical reality around us.

That does leave us with a bit of a void. Having got a feel for the glorious conception of infinity, we do yearn to have a glimpse of it in the observable world around us. However, that seems to be a case of hoping against hope indeed. But what about the totality of the physical reality around us, the Universe? Is it finite or infinite? Since the Universe too is, by definition, something that physically exists, it's got to be finite in its extent, by the same argument as above. Now, imagine that you are at the outer edge of this finite Universe. How does this physical limit exist? As some solid structure? If so, what exists beyond it? By definition, there can't be anything beyond it for you are already at the outer edge of the finite Universe. But such an absolute physical limit is hard to imagine for the mind does intuitively feel something's got to be there beyond it. Since that contradicts our initial understanding of a finite Universe, does that mean the Universe is infinite? The mind, so used to finite conceptions, cannot conceive of an infinite Universe either. Hmmm, infinity does leave us with a profound dilemma here.

Infinity thus establishes itself as an awe inspiring idea by its uncanny manifestations in the various realms of human thought. At the start of this post, we had set out trying to understand what infinity is. While we may not have completely succeeded in our mission, we do seem to have pondered on a profound subject. Infinity can never really be defined in its entirety for anything that’s defined to be something automatically becomes finite. At the most, we can have abstract descriptions that point to it. As elusive as it may be, it's this elusive nature of infinity that has inspired generations of artists, musicians, scientists, etc. to constantly raise the bar and seek it in the form of greater expressions in their endeavors. We may never really get to it but the promise it holds for constant upliftment does make infinity an eternal source of inspiration for mankind indeed.