From: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 94 22:48:23 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Bekenstein Bound (was: Crypto and new computing strategies)
Message-ID: <199404060549.WAA16935@jobe.shell.portal.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
> Jim Choate writes:
> 
>  > If you accept the universe as unbounded then you have to throw out the Big
>  > Bang and much of conventional physics, including large parts of what you
>  > are trying to prove. 
> 
> I think you may be confusing the notion of "unbounded" with the notion of 
> "finite".  The Big Bang is perfectly consistant with the notion of a 
> finite but unbounded universe.  

The big bang is also perfectly consistent with an infinite and unbounded
universe.  This is part of the well-known debate over whether the universe
is "open" or "closed".  An open universe is infinite in extent.

However, at any given time only a finite portion of the universe is avail-
able, so the infinity is not really accessible.

Hal