Is Math flawed? Are we?

[Arcesious]

Considering what current information about the universe suggests, the 'Big Rip' idea counteracts the idea of the universe becoming a bunch of black holes after a long time. The universe appears to be expanding rapidly - too much for its own good. Hypothetically, the universe will become 'dust' in 22 billion years.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip

 

On another subject, mathematics done about galaxies indicate that they need about 95% more gravity (If I read the wiki articles correctly) to hold together. This is where dark matter and dark energy come into hypothesis. Dark matter, which is undefined specifically, is hypothetically what holds galaxies together.

 

IMO, if dark matter/energy is proven/discovered and data is collected about it, it could very well turn the world of physics on its head.

(Heck, I bet they wouldn't call it dark matter anymore, since its only called that because it is currently undetectable, and thus 'dark' to us.)

 

Link about dark matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

 

So for us, its kind of like being in a pitch black cave, where you know the rock formations are there, because you can 'feel them' with you 'hands' (hands metaphorically being our observations of galaxies seeming to behave like they have around 95% more mass than they appear to have), but you can't see them without proper illumination. So the key to figuring out what exactly it is that's missing in the cosmological model is figuring out how to build the proper 'flashlight'.

 

Hypothetically, dark energy is linked to the 'out of control' expansion of the universe.

 

Yet another link for further info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy

 

And an overveiw of various ideas about how the might end is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe

[Samuel Dravis]

The creation of the universe and physics is interesting but it doesn't seem very "Math, Problems With", if you get my meaning. In the immortal albeit horribly mangled words of some Star Wars character, "Stay on t[opic], stay on t[opic]!"

[Darth Avlectus]

About the infinity thing, a quote from the book "What is Mathematics?" should help:

 

This should help explain why Hilbert's paradox is a paradox. It's using infinity as though it were a number, and it cannot be used in that way.

 

That does make sense.

 

When it is referred to in problems or answers as "an infinite number of", I often tend to think it (infinity) is merely a convenient way of saying "numerically endless" or "numbers theoretically without end". So I do not believe it is being actually used as such when it is said that "variable" represents "such and such to infinity" amount, etc.

 

Is the paradox of calling infinity itself a number not an obvious thing? To do so is, well, paradoxical even in its plainest form. A value that is unending couldn't be represented as a number by any one value since it is theoretically any and every number in either direction + or -.

[Ray Jones]

This should help explain why Hilbert's paradox is a paradox. It's using infinity as though it were a number, and it cannot be used in that way.

For some odd reason I ignored that and had other things in mind. I stopped seeing infinity as a "number" long ago. Nice to learn about Hilbert's paradox though it's pretty useless, IMO.

[Nedak]

I hope it's flawed.

 

I can't figure it out for the life of me.