Re: Is Nothing Finite?

Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Sat, 19 Oct 1996 14:27:55 +0200 (MET DST)


On Fri, 18 Oct 1996, Chris Hind wrote:

> I keep trying to think what could be finite? Everything is nearly or is
> infinite with technology.

Unfortunately, this isn't true. The lightspeed limit makes arbitrarily
high velocities impossible, conservation of energy limits available energy
(since your past lightcone is finite, you can never have infinite
matter/energy), thermodynamics limits how much work you can do with an
energy source and quantization limits information densities and makes
spacetime chunky. But we are *very* far from these limits now, and for
the foreseeable future.

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