Is the Internet infinite?

What is the internet anyway? maybe im just an idiot. is the info just stored on so many computers or is the internet stored "out there"?

 

The internet is just a virtual space. People upload pages saved onto their computers to their webpage on the internet.

 

Ya the internet is relatively infinit... its max would be as many servers you could fit on earth... thatd be a lot! and than theres always room on the moon... and mars... but the internet is basically tons and tons of computers sharing information with eachother... when you view the "internet" as in websites.. you are really just viewing documents on someone elses "computer" or "server".
a server is just a computer with a good connection and maybe a little different hardware (RAID on hard drives for example)

 

It really depends on how you define the "internet". If you mean what's already uploaded, then it's obviously finite. But as was said, it's always possible to add more servers and expand it. It's important to think of the internet as nothing more than a sophisticated network of computers.

 

The internet is limited by the amount of machines that can be directly addressed. ipv4 has been superceded by ipv6.

 

It's just a huge network, no reason what so ever it could not expand infinitely.

 

I guess that it takes 3 atoms to produce a transistor (actually many more, but lets say 3). It guess that limits the maximum size of the internet. Then you can goto into the physical limits of theory on information transfer. So the internet is very much finite but it could expand much further yet. In a massive network containing all the knowedge you could ever want, im sure the driving force behind its expansion will continue to be piracy and porn.

 

With present IP technology, here's your limits:

Servers each have to have their own IP address to be "directly" on the net. IP adresses are anywhere from 1.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 theoretically, though huge blocks of them are reserved (127.x.x.x or 192.x.x.x for example). So that gives ya 255^4 or 4,228,250,625, or a little over 4 billion computers directly attached to the internet.

Of course, each of those computers can host lots of Domain names. So "www.ibm.com" and "hipforums.com" could be on the same server (though they aren't.)

Of course, each of your 4 billion plus computers that could be on the internet could be a 'gateway' for other machines: you could have up to 255^3 machines behind that gateway (again, theoretically), so until we get IPv^ up and running, the maximum computers you could connect to directly would be a little over 4 billion, and the maximum number of computers that could connect to you (theoretically) would be 70,110,209,207,109,375, or a little over 70 quadrillion.

Plenty of room to go round

Of course the real power of the internet isn't just in the vast volume, but the feedback patterns that get created between every single datum and the rest of the net. I'll cease the ramble on this thought: In "Darwin Among the Machines", George Dyson explores the evolution of Computational consciousness, and posits that we may be thinking of AI in the wrong terms most often.... it isn't going to be "HAL 9000", it'll be something so alien to us, we won't even know it's going on, and quite possibly is allready. To get a feel for this, download an image of the human nervous system, or the human blood vessels... then download one of the many "maps of the internet" that are out there... take a peek.

 

an infinitely large internet would be useless wihtout an infinitely fast internet connection.

 

you'd also need an infinitely long IP address. So you'd need an infinitely large register to hole the address which would require an infinite amount of transistors. Which would make you processor and RAM infinitely dense and thuse turn your computer into a black hole. Also I imagine you'd need quite a large fan/heat sink combo. This would all require of course a very large power supply, and could have implications for fossil fuel emissions.

 

Great answer MUI! Correct even. The internet is stored on computers. One website dies. The owner doesn't want it anymore. A NEW website comes alive in the old ones place.

 

I'm not sure that you would. Consider; there are an infinite integers, yet each can be expressed by a finite string of didgits.

On the other hand, there is a finite number of elementry particles in the universe, which would set an upper limit on the total memory of the internet.

 

how can an infinite number of integers each be expressed with a finite string of digits? the whole point of infinity is that it encompasses numbers with undefinable orders of magnitude. if you could express each as a finite string of digits then it wouldnt be infinity, it would just be a possibly ginourmous number.

 

maybe, not sure how though. An infinite amount of numbers is an awful lot to get into a finite number of integers.

 

I keep trying to tell my isp that, but damn them, they won't listen

... and start spouting Cantor... I'm gonna have to go plant flowers or something...

 

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,...13456,13457,... Keep going until you get to the integer that you want. Each integer is expressed by a finite representation, even though there are an infinite number of integers.

Everyone of the IP adresses in an "infinite" internet could be expressed by a finite number of didgites. The IP adresses would not need to be of infinite lenghte, but there would be an infinite numbe of addresses.

Or, if you are want the totality of all integers, it is commonly represented by N. The sideways 8 is another finite expressesion of infinity.

 

surely if I keep going i get to an integer of inifinite length. Say a wanted the infiniteth number in the series N = Np + 1is end up with an infinitely long number.

 

no see you never quite reach an infinite length but there is always a length bigger. so if you set the internet to a finite number of digits, it wont be enough for the whole internet. the only way would be to compensate for infinite digits. anything else would disallow an infinite number of possibilities.

 

so that would more or less be the definition of an inifnitely long number then, one where you never reach the required length.

 

Create two special characters {start IP} and {end IP}

each address could be expressed

{start IP} (normal decimal expression) {end IP}. This will allow an infinite number of addresses, each expressed by a finite string.


There is no "ininitith" number. Infinity is not a number.

Normaly there are three definitions of infinity.

One (used in limits) means to "increase without limit." As in "the limit as x goes to infinty of 1/x is 0." However, in this usage "the limit as x goes to infinty of x^2" is undefined. It is not infinity.

Another definition is used in set theory and is related to cardnality. In this definition, if S is a set and there is a 1 to 1 mapping from the natural numbers (N = {0,1,2,3,...}) into S, then S is said to be infinite.
There are sets of various cardnalities, but the arithmatic of cardinal numbers is tricky. ALEPH is the cardnality of N. It is also the cardnality of the {...,-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,...}. So one could say that ALEPH + ALEPH = ALEPH. ALEPH is also the cardnality of the rational numbers (fractions with integer denominator and numerator). So ALEPH*ALEPH = ALEPH.

The third definition relates to ordnality. It is similar to cardnality, but the mappings between sets must preserve "well ordering." I doubt that that is what people are thinking of.

Infinity is weird. It should not be confused with "very very big." Nor should it be treated like a Real number. (Real numbers are the numbers on a number line and include the irrationals and transindentals.)