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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to question the popular belief that there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on earth?

354 replies

Tryingtryingandtrying · 24/01/2021 18:52

How can this possibly be true? Tbh I'd question if there were more stars than grains of sand on my local beach? I've read a bit around it and still is impossible for me to comprehend. Any other facts or theories that just don't make sense to you?

OP posts:
PumpkinPieAlibi · 26/01/2021 15:37

You’re saying you don’t understand it but you uncritically accept it? That’s... up to you, I suppose.

You surely don't mean that you understand everything in great detail that you accept? That would make you a savant of the highest order. For example, do you understand the intricacies of immunotherapy and their effects at a cellular level or do you simply understand that if you were to be diagnosed with cancer and the oncologists and specialists who have worked in this field their entire lives, propose this line of treatment with a great chance of success, that you would accept said treatment?

Electricity and magnetism (still a field of science with a great deal to learn) and its impact in your everyday life or mechanics and the Laws of Motion and your car. There's so much happening around us that we have always accepted and while we occasionally question, we cannot truly understand unless we are scientists ourselves but we do accept it.

Daftasabroom · 26/01/2021 15:41

@AStudyinPink I think it's not the nature of the Universe you need to learn more about but the philosophical and mathematical nature of infinity.

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 15:42

You surely don't mean that you understand everything in great detail that you accept?

No. I accept many things as true that I don’t entirely understand. Just not if they make no apparent sense, and nobody is able to explain them, and the world of science generally posits that they are theoretical, not factual.

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 15:43

Daftasabroom

Feel free to explain if you can.

unmarkedbythat · 26/01/2021 15:49

I believe in God the way I believe in quarks. People whose business it is to know about quantum physics or religion tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks and God exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they've learned, I'd find quarks and God just like they did.

Not that I think God and quarks are equivalent at all here (in fact I am not sure at all I even understand wiki's explanation of what a sodding quark is) but I do like the quote with the God bits taken out: "People whose business it is to know about quantum physics tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they've learned, I'd find quarks just like they did".

Mostly I just wanted to stick that quote in because at some level that's what we all do, right? Listen to people who do know and are expert because no one can be expert in all fields.

MasterBeth · 26/01/2021 15:51

Yes, I am very happy that my understanding of cosmological mathematics, like my understanding of brain function, the way a cricket ball spins or how to write a symphony, is limited by my intellect, talent and education.

Nevertheless, I accept that those people who have dedicated their lives to those pursuits, built upon the knowledge of their predecessors, understand all of these things far better than me. This acceptance is not earned uncritically, but backed up by the weight of post-Enlightenment civilised society. By the scientific method. By the reputation of universities and academia. By the way that this same method has caused us to understand all kinds of things already about the stars and the atoms and our DNA.

If these people say, humbly and with all kinds of caveats about how unsure they are about their findings - asking their peers to review and build upon their work - that they have discovered through the language of mathematics how the universe can be infinite and space can be expanding, then I believe them.

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 15:52

Listen to people who do know and are expert because no one can be expert in all fields.

No, it isn’t. Most rational people listen to people who claim to know, and decide whether they can reasonably agree. Like with God. Or Scientology. I know there are people who ‘know’ more about those things than I do; that doesn’t mean I have to accept what they say on faith.

MasterBeth · 26/01/2021 15:54

@AStudyinPink

You surely don't mean that you understand everything in great detail that you accept?

No. I accept many things as true that I don’t entirely understand. Just not if they make no apparent sense, and nobody is able to explain them, and the world of science generally posits that they are theoretical, not factual.

You also need to learn about scientific theory. Calling something “theoretical” is not the opposite of “factual”.

Gravity is theoretical. No-one doubts the fact of gravity.

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 15:55

If these people say, humbly and with all kinds of caveats about how unsure they are about their findings - asking their peers to review and build upon their work - that they have discovered through the language of mathematics how the universe can be infinite and space can be expanding, then I believe them.

And I don’t object to you believing them. I, on the other hand, believe there is always a chance a theory might be wrong even when it is arrived at by scientists. Because science is - as it should be - the ultimate rational discipline; until proof proper exists, room for doubt remains.

MasterBeth · 26/01/2021 15:57

@AStudyinPink

If these people say, humbly and with all kinds of caveats about how unsure they are about their findings - asking their peers to review and build upon their work - that they have discovered through the language of mathematics how the universe can be infinite and space can be expanding, then I believe them.

And I don’t object to you believing them. I, on the other hand, believe there is always a chance a theory might be wrong even when it is arrived at by scientists. Because science is - as it should be - the ultimate rational discipline; until proof proper exists, room for doubt remains.

I don’t think you know what proof proper is. What proof proper have you seen for the existence of gravity?
AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 15:57

Calling something “theoretical” is not the opposite of “factual”.

Well, no, obviously. The opposite of factual is ‘not factual’. Theory falls into that category, but is not in and of itself the opposite of factual.

Gravity is theoretical. No-one doubts the fact of gravity.

That’s a big call. What do you mean by ‘the facts of gravity’?

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 15:59

I don’t think you know what proof proper is.

And I don’t think you do. With respect, Beth, I’m not going to reply anymore because you’re beginning to irritate me. Have a nice evening.

Daftasabroom · 26/01/2021 16:04

@AStudyinPink look up some of the infinity thought experiments. Or this simple one.

What happens when you cut an infinitely long piece of string in two?

MasterBeth · 26/01/2021 16:04

OK, this is helpful.

If we’re really getting to the point where no-one can be 100% sure about anything, about gravity or the speed of light or DNA or the existence of dogs, I can cheerfully stop.

Good luck in your GCSE Philosophy exams.

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 16:06

Daftasabroom

That doesn’t help to make your point. It’s nonsense. A thought, not a reality.

peapotter · 26/01/2021 16:08

The problem is that the term “universe” means different things to different people, depending on how technical they’re being. When we talk about the number of stars in the universe, Astrophysicists are talking about the observable universe. This is not at all infinite. Even then the number of stars we could possibly see, and the number of stars that exist in real time, are not the same.

I find the best way to think about it is the fact that when you look further away you are looking back in time. (This is the best bit of astronomy imo). Because light takes time to travel, we aren’t seeing the stars and galaxies as they are now, but as they used to be.

The sun could have changed colour 8 minutes ago and we wouldn’t know until just now, because the light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach us. The stars we see at night are actually images 1000s of years out of date. Some of them may no longer exist!

If you look far away enough, you see galaxies as they looked millions and even billlions of years ago. And even further away you see the first stars forming. Then you see the heat of the Big Bang (cmb) and then nothing. And that is the edge of the observable universe.

So even within the observable universe there are currently many many more stars than we could see, even with the best telescopes. Many distant galaxies that we see were a few billion years old when they emitted the light that has just reached us, and they will be much bigger and have many more stars now, if some way we could see what they look like in real time.

Not sure if that made sense. But next time you look at a star, remember that it is an image from the distant past! Always amazes me.

Buccanarab · 26/01/2021 16:16

What happens when you cut an infinitely long piece of string in two?

I've had to go Google that now you've asked and the answer I found is a surprisingly good example of how some concepts can't be explained in English (or words).

Taken from Quora

Let’s forget about cutting it “in half”, and cut it at whatever point you like.

Mathematically, we can model your infinitely long string with the set of Real Numbers R . Say you cut it at point a. Then, you are left with two pieces: R1 and R2, and either:
R1=(−∞,a)
R2=[a,+∞)

Or:

R1=(−∞,a]
R2=(a,+∞)

R represents the sets of numbers in the “Real Number Line”. The notation (−∞,a) represents the set of number smaller than a ( ⟹a not included), while [a,+∞) stands for the set of numbers larger or equal to a ( ⟹a included). Subsets of R on the form (a,b) are called open, those on the form [a,b] are called closed and those on either of the forms [a,b) or (a,b] are called half-open/half-closed.

You can see how for all cases R1 is not equivalent to R2 . In fact, within this model, it is impossible to cut the string in two equivalent pieces: One will always contain the cutting point a as its “last point” and the other one won’t even have such “last point”! If you want the pieces to be “equal”, you need to remove a and end up with:

R1=(−∞,a)
R2=(a,+∞)
Note R1+R2≠R (i.e. the pieces added together are no longer the original string, since point a is missing). But they are now equivalent by topological standards.

Now the above is all gobbledygook to me but you can see the person who's answered it has taken the time to fully explain their answer. The problem is if, like me, you don't understand the maths in the answer you won't understand the answer at all.

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 16:18

Buccanarab

But it’s all founded on the same fallacy: that there is such a thing as an infinitely long piece of string. Of course you can pretend, and use mathematics to illustrate the outcome of that fairy story, but unless you show me how it is possible for a piece of string to be infinite, I will continue to treat it as a thought experiment.

DadDadDad · 26/01/2021 16:26

Actually, I'd say that the maths answer that @Buccanarab has quoted is nothing to do with actual string. As a mathematical concept, the real number line is well-defined and is infinite, and (with care) meaningful statements can be made about it, such as "cutting it in half" (ie splitting it into two non-overlapping sets).

Thought experiments with infinite string just go to show how counter-intuitive such an object would be (and in fact probably do help to show that such a thing can't exist in the physical universe). For example, if you had an infinite string and cut a metre out of the middle and joined the two remaining infinite pieces you would have the same infinite string again. So you have "generated" extra material from nothing (?).

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 16:27

Actually, I'd say that the maths answer that @Buccanarab has quoted is nothing to do with actual string.

Of course.

Daftasabroom · 26/01/2021 16:41

Thought experiments demonstrate difficult concepts or paradoxes and infinity is a difficult concept. Just trying to help. It's not nonsense.

I also think you're confusing hypothesis with theory. Next time you get in an aircraft you need to start believing that Newton's theories were more than hypothesis.

DGRossetti · 26/01/2021 16:56

But I like genetics and not chemistry

If history has taught us nothing else, it's that the division of sciences is purely a human construct ...

Anyway, it's all physics, isn't it Smile

Daftasabroom · 26/01/2021 17:01

@AStudyinPink the string doesn't have to be a piece of rope it could be a string of photons or galaxies or onions.

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 17:06

the string doesn't have to be a piece of rope it could be a string of photons or galaxies or onions.

Sure. You can have a theoretical string of onions. That doesn’t mean one exists. I’m not here to discuss imaginary onions.

AStudyinPink · 26/01/2021 17:07

Next time you get in an aircraft you need to start believing that Newton's theories were more than hypothesis.

Again, you are confused. My scepticism about the unproven claim that the universe is infinite and expanding is not a universal scepticism. Some things I doubt; others I accept.