every time i think about the concept of infinty i get overwhelmed. mostly because i just can't fathom something that goes on forever. there is nothing that has no end. right? but that is not the case. there exists that which has no end. and it is out there in real life right now. for us to observe even. and that is overwhelming.

its easy enough to think of infinity in number terms. after all, numbers go on forever. .3 repeating for example. or just counting up forever. see? its infinite.
for whatever reason though, that does not overwhelm me. counting up numbers doesn't lead me to ponder mysteries about the epically mysterious number 4657 quadrillion. that has no intrigue to me. but here are a couple things that are infinite that do have intrigue to me.

infinity #1: time

when did time begin? we all know that time is concept that we thought of to measure sequences of events. but would you consider that we 'invented' time? or did we 'discover' time?
well the way i see it, time existed before we could label it as such. can paleantologists approximate how long the dinosaurs lived? yes. therefore time existed before we could name it time. and therefore time was discovered, not invented.
so does time have a beginning? well we can't say that time began when we invented it now can we? so you try to think back back back before dinosaurs, before continents and pangea. before earth was created and the solar system was being born. this is all happening through time. its not fair to measure time in years when you think about the grande scheme of the cosmic universe. not when an 'eon' is but a mere blink of an eye. or less. ...infinitely less =O

that's the rub. how far back do we go before we find the beginning of time? the big bang? well ok.. but did time exist before that? yes. for how long was the big bang there for? what was there before the big bang? emptiness? for how long was there emptiness? you see where i'm going here? time is infinite! and since time is infinite that means it exists in both directly infinitely. forward through time infinitely (which is where we are right now) and backwards through time infinitely.
now i'm going to go out on a limb here and theorize that before our big bang, there was another universe. scientists have already observed that our universe is comprised of galaxies that are moving away from a single point. yes that's right. you heard me. entire galaxies are moving out from a center point. in fact that's what helped this big bang theory in the first place.
so in order for there to be a big bang, it was the universe contracting in on itself to form that ginormous ball of mass.
so getting back to time, if you were to go back in time before the big bang, you would get to see another universe. back up further, another big bang. one before that?
actually, which big bang are we in? are we the 4th big bang? the 397th? the 18 trillionth? its all guesswork there of course. since time is infinite going backwards, its possible there are infinite big bangs. o my lordy!=O

infinity #2: space

the final frontier. well i don't know if william shatner had thought about how true that statement is. when you consider just how vast our universe is.
you know that so-called "most important picture ever taken"?

here it is. marvel at it. scientists left a telescope pointing at a spot in the sky, the blackest spot. and left the exposure open.

that's the image they got. those are GALAXIES! you know the entire star wars series took place in just 1 galaxy. and that's just pointing the camera in 1 degree out of 360. the odds are astounding that there is life out there. so astounding that i'll just go ahead and say it with certainty. yes, there is life beyond our solar system. intelligent life.

so if you were to travel faster than light. lets say you travel at a speed of "speed of light cubed" just to save time. and you were to zoooooom out of our galaxy. zoom past the other galaxies. zoom zoom out of our universe! then what... space. infinite space! what is that great black out there? a wall? whats on the other side of the wall? space? and beyond that? and beyond that? its space its infinite.

because it is infinite, there are infinite probabilities that something is even beyond our universe. there could be a big bang happening right now out there creating another universe. there could be infinite big bangs happening right now, and infinite universes. multiverses! our equipment is too primitive to measure it. or maybe its just so far away the light hasn't reached us yet. or maybe the light has already reached us and passed. maybe a multiverse passed by us three quadrillion eons before our big bang happened. and that's only in 1 direction out of 360 degrees. infinity extends down, up, back, diagonally.. everywhere. infinitely!

where does it end? when is enough enough? when can we say "ok there is no more. there is nothing else but emptiness beyond this". well mind bogglingly answer is that we can never say that. right? because it is infinite there is the infinite probability that there is something else out there. in fact i can sit here and say that there is a 99.9 repeating chance of there being a room full of space monkies typing the complete works of shakespeare right this second and i would be right.

think about that. there is a room of monkies somewhere in infinity right now typing out shakespeare. in real life. right now.