No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The End of the World (From the Standpoint of Mathematical Physics.)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2016
Extract
I am afraid that the title of my address is not quite explicit. It lacks that precision of statement which ought to characterise the utterances of a mathematician. I have undertaken to speak to you about the End of the World, but I have not told you which end. The world—or space-time—is a four-dimensional continuum, and consequently offers a choice of a great many directions in which we might start off to look for an end; and it is by no means easy to describe “from the standpoint of mathematical physics” the direction in which I intend to lead you. I have therefore to examine at some length the preliminary question, Which end? But that leads us so deeply into the whole problem that by the time I have finished with it my address will be over.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Mathematical Association 1931
References
page 317 note * This ambiguity is Inseparable from the operation of counting the number of particles in finite but unbounded space. It is impossible to tell whether the protons have been counted once or twice over.
page 318 note * I use “multillions” as a general term for numbers ol order 101010 or larger.
page 320 note * I am hopeful that the doctrine of the “expanding universe” will intervene to prevent its happening.
page 321 note * No doubt “extremely improbable” coincidences occur to all of us, but the improbability Is of an utterly different order of magnitude from that concerned in the present discussion.