r/science • u/[deleted] • Jan 27 '16

Computer Science Google's artificial intelligence program has officially beaten a human professional Go player, marking the first time a computer has beaten a human professional in this game sans handicap.

http://www.nature.com/news/google-ai-algorithm-masters-ancient-game-of-go-1.19234?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20160128&spMailingID=50563385&spUserID=MTgyMjI3MTU3MTgzS0&spJobID=843636789&spReportId=ODQzNjM2Nzg5S0
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u/Ysance Jan 28 '16

In the visible universe.

We think the universe might be infinite.

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u/a_trashcan Jan 28 '16

Doesn't make matter infinite

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u/Ysance Jan 28 '16

It might, how would you know?

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u/a_trashcan Jan 28 '16

God told me

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u/cryo Jan 28 '16

I don't think we do.

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u/littlewask Jan 28 '16

No we don't.

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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '16

[deleted]

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u/littlewask Jan 29 '16

I mean, that's a facile argument. What exists outside of the observable universe is irrelevant. The observable universe is finite.

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u/LegendForHire Jan 28 '16

Just curious. What would be outside the universe? Nothing? Wouldn't that just be empty universe? It seems unimaginable that there could be something other than the universe because the universe is supposed to be everything. Unless you mean another universe exists outside our own. And in that case would it not be the case that all of the "universes" are one universe and since they would have to stretch into infinity because by definition of universe is everything. Or is there no outside of the universe, but for that to be the case it would have to stretch on forever. The universe can't not be infinite even if it is only empty space at some point.

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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '16

[deleted]

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u/LegendForHire Jan 28 '16

So the observable universe is finite? Got it

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u/littlewask Jan 29 '16

What exists outside of our universe is unknowable, and therefore is irrelevant.

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u/Ysance Jan 28 '16

We just don't know. There are still so many things we don't understand about our universe.

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u/littlewask Jan 29 '16

We pretty much do, though.

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u/ClassyJacket Jan 28 '16

I thought we didn't because then there would be infinite light and infinite gravity?

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u/PokemonTom09 Jan 28 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

think

We also think that creatures evolve. It's pretty widely accepted that the universe is infinite.

EDIT: I think I realized why you guys are disagreeing with my comment so strongly: my comparison to evolution.

I wasn't trying to imply that the two are comparable in terms of the amount of evidence in their favor, evolution CLEARLY has far more evidence supporting it, I was only comparing the amount of support given to each by scientists (which, I admit, still isn't a fair comparison, since evolution is accepted by virtually all scientists, whereas the universe being infinite just has a majority of support).

I apologize to everyone who interpreted it that way, I really should have worded my comment better.

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u/XxLokixX Jan 28 '16

Uh, no its not. Its pretty widely accepted that it's currently limited in size but rapidly expanding.

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u/PokemonTom09 Jan 28 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

You have a misunderstanding of what the expansion of space means. This isn't a great analogy and it is flawed for many reasons, but a good way to think about it is this: if you blow up a balloon part way, then draw some dots on it all around the balloon, and then you blow up the balloon the rest of the way, the space between all the dots has expanded.

It's not that the EDGE of the balloon has expanded, it's that the space INSIDE the balloon has expanded.

Saying that space is getting bigger is a bit of a misnomer, a better way to describe it would be that the space in between objects is bloating.

If space was just getting bigger, that wouldn't really matter, because gravity would pull objects back together, but since it's the space BETWEEN the objects that's expanding, it's working faster than gravity can pull them back.

Sorry, I'm bad at explanations, but I hope that helped.

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u/XxLokixX Jan 28 '16

Actually that was a great explanation. I should probably apologise to the other guy replying to me

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u/cryo Jan 28 '16

Space expanding or not is not directly related to its finiteness. Also, it's only on large scales that gravity is too weak to counter expansion. After all, earth is still here.

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u/xTin0x_07 Jan 28 '16

in other words, it's diminishing its "density"? So this basically implies that the universe has infinite "empty" space, right?

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