What is the definition of infinity and is it "milliseconds devided by lightyears"?

Question

My dad is a moron, he believes this is the definition of infinity, i told him he is wrong, he now bets a valuable item on the validity of his definition, please point out the obvious and prove him wrong.

PLEASE, say if my dad is correct, or incorrect along with your post, as he is unable to understand the definitions given so far.

further more, is a lightyear a unit of time in ANY way, which my dad says it is, or is it strictly a unit of distance?

Answer 1

In general, infinity is the quality or state of endlessness or having no limits in terms of time, space, or other quantity. In mathematics, infinity is the conceptual expression of such a "numberless" number. It is often symbolized by the lemniscate (also known as the lemniscate of Bernoulli), which looks something like the numeral 8 written sideways

Answer 2

What your dad seems to be trying to say is that a very small quantity divided by a very large quantity, despite the terms changing between time and length. Trouble with his definition comes up on two counts, though.

1. If you take a really small number and divide it by a really large number, the quotient is going to be tremendously small... unless he's talking about "infinity" as something infinitely small (rather than infinitely large).

2. A millisecond is a measurable unit of time. A light year is a measurable unit of length. If you perform any operation on measurable (nonzero) amounts, the result will be a finite number, whether tremendously small or tremendously large... neither of which comes close to infinity.

Infinity is immeasurable. It's not a number. Something infinitely large is higher than any number, and something infinitely small is closer to zero than anything can be. This is what makes it such a difficult concept... most people think since "infinity" is taught in a math class that it must be a number, and it's not.

Answer 3

sonny, stop arguing with your dad

when you argue with your dad, even when you win, you lose

you may be technically right about lightyears being a distance measurement (not a time measurement) and you may have a point that about the infinity thing (although since it is a short time, divided by a long distance, the term is a reciprical rate, and since math is abstract and invented, you could develop your own math where that made some sort of sense as an infinity definition) BUT it doesn't matter

tell your dad you are sorry you acted so smart alec
tell him you don't want to argue about silly things like infinity

remember, when you argue past a point with your dad, even when you when, you lose

this will be true all your life, so get use to it

sure, a little father son arguing is a fun part of family life, but don't go past the line, and don't bring in other people, especially a bunch of nerds from Y!Answers

Answer 4

oke doke
a light year 1*365*84600*3*10^8*10*3
ok i tell u wt i did 365 are days in a year and a day have 84600 seconds and light trevels 3*10^8 meters in a second and i multiplited it with 10*3 that is wt i did for calculation to convert meters in millimeters
but v sceintists think that any thing is neglit able if it becomes eaquel or less than 1*10^-50 i.e v call it zero
so if any thing like goes under the dividation of 1 then it will be infinite but the calculation of above even dont give rase to power of 25 so it will never be asumed as infinite it is almost 9.2637*10^21
so ur fater is wrong

Answer 5

Dad's wrong, unless he specifies that it is an infinite number of milliseconds. Anything else would not be infinite.

If he does that, he is giving an invalid definition, since it includes the term being defined.

(And the folks who don't like dividing time by distance, you are incorrect. It is perfectly valid. Just like dividing lightyears by milliseconds would give you a velocity. A very large, but not infinite, velocity.)

Answer 6

1 a : the quality of being infinite
1 b : unlimited extent of time, space, or quantity : BOUNDLESSNESS
2 : an indefinitely great number or amount
3 a : the limit of the value of a function or variable when it tends to become numerically larger than any preassigned finite number
3 b : a part of a geometric magnitude that lies beyond any part whose distance from a given reference position is finite c : a transfinite number (as aleph-null)
4 : a distance so great that the rays of light from a point source at that distance may be regarded as parallel

Answer 7

Milliseconds are units of time, and light years are units of distance. Dividing one by the other doesn't make sense.

If you want an infinitely large number, try 1/0.

Answer 8

No. Any non-zero number divided by zero is the usual definition of infinity. (there are others) Another is a Japanese car.

Type infinity in the search below and use Wiki to get more.

Answer 9

Milliseconds divided by lightyears = approx 0 (infinitely small)
Lightyears divided my milliseconds = infititely large

Toodles

Answer 10

Unbounded space, time, or quantity.

The limit that a function is said to approach at x = a when (x) is larger than any preassigned number for all x sufficiently near a.