The UNIVERSE may be INFINITE but the CONTENTS are NOT

Why do even highly qualified physicists entertain the notion of an infinite number of galazies, solar systems and planets being out there in the universe?

Of course it's tempting to think that IF there's an infinite number of permutations then even the most remote possibility would drift towards certainty - such a another copy of Earth and all of us out there doing different things at different times... but not just ONE copy - an infinite number of copies!

That's all very well but it ignores one of the most fundamental laws that have helped us pursue technology to this point - i.e. The first law of energy, also known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed from one form to another; essentially, the total amount of energy in a closed system remains constant, meaning energy is conserved.

So go back to the big bang.  Whatever it was - and rippling energy fluctuations is a leading idea - it was virtually instantaneous (actually it WAS the start of all time!) but it was finite, i.e. it stopped very soon and certainly has stopped by now of course.

That means that the total energy-mass 'injected' into the univers is also FINITE.

Even though mass and energy are deemed interhangeable, and space itself might be considered infinite, the total energy-matter content of the universe must be finite

So, despite the immensity of the universe and all the trillions of billions of trillions (etc) of suns etc. out there, it remains unlikely that there are other copies of earth or us out there and doing a better or worse job of life than us. cool

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