From infinity to Infinity

[Earl]

I have been watching a Horizion documentary, and while drinking my tea I have been thinking that is not infinitely large exactly the same as infinity small as small and large mean nothing in infinity.

This lead of to another thought.

If everything happened everywhere at once and expanded, where does this leave virtual particles, as technically did they all came into existence at the same time? or is it that they do appear afresh and new in every moment of there existence, which would mean they are increasing all the time in the expanded space, what would a ratio of per second growth be? if that makes sense?

An Infinite universe would expand infinity every moment of expansion other wise it cannot be infinite.

[Jussi]

... I have been thinking that is not infinitely large exactly the same as infinity small...

' Zero is just infinity in the opposite direction '

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Small and large are always relative terms.

As for virtual particles, my understanding is that their existence is unproven, so they don't 'build up'. They are a convenient way of making the maths work and allow real-world calculations to be made, but that may not correspond to an actual physical reality. Once you get down to Physics at this level, there are a lot of unknowns.

Please bear in mind, I'm not a Physicist, so treat my words with caution here.

[Earl]

Small and large are always relative terms.

As for virtual particles, my understanding is that their existence is unproven, so they don't 'build up'. They are a convenient way of making the maths work and allow real-world calculations to be made, but that may not correspond to an actual physical reality. Once you get down to Physics at this level, there are a lot of unknowns.

Please bear in mind, I'm not a Physicist, so treat my words with caution here.

Small and large are always relative terms.

As for virtual particles, my understanding is that their existence is unproven, so they don't 'build up'. They are a convenient way of making the maths work and allow real-world calculations to be made, but that may not correspond to an actual physical reality. Once you get down to Physics at this level, there are a lot of unknowns.

Please bear in mind, I'm not a Physicist, so treat my words with caution here.

Does not the Vacuum tube experiment prove there existence?

[Knight of Clear Skies]

What experiment would that be please? Googling the term returns nothing obvious. Are you thinking of the Casimir Effect?

Bear in mind, the terminology gets very confusing at this point. Virtual particles certainly exist in the sense that they produce measurable effects - the unsolved question is whether they really exist as particles. This is why they are called virtual rather than just particles.

[username]

The way I understand it is that they are an occurence of an event involving 'actual' particles. Sort of like if two people swimming in a pool both causes waves which join and either cancel eachother out or make a bigger wave. If that wave pushes the ball that's also in the pool then the ball has been pushed by a 'virtual' swimmer. I may be wrong there.

If the universe is expanding then the probability of real particle interactions causing virtual particle events both reduces and increases. Things are moving further apart so interact less and with less energy as the energy has more volume to cover. That's the reduction. However matter in the universe can't distribute evenly fast enough to compensate for the expansion so there's local concentrations (stars galaxis etc).

Working on the assumption that virtual particles exist due to real particle energy events and the number of real particles in the universe is constant then it's a balance between the rate of expansion and the speed of matter diffusion in the universe.

Or something like that?

[spurius]

LOL! people. He didnt mean virtual particles literally! I think it was a generalization.

No such thing as infinitely small. Continual shrinking will eventually come a point where it no longer exists. By the time you get to the last atom or whatever the smallest bit of matter is, and remove it, you end up with 100% sod all. Infinity big I reckon is theoretically possible. The vacuum of space itself being a candidate.