Is the internet infinite?

[sprinkles]

So each combination or pattern of holes represents a piece of data? How are words/letters/pictures stored? Just in numbers/binary?

Yup, binary. Pretty much all digital computers depend on it. There's theoretically other ways that are higher than binary but these aren't in common use. The internet is pretty much made for binary.

 

[say what]

Yup, binary. Pretty much all digital computers depend on it. There's theoretically other ways that are higher than binary but these aren't in common use. The internet is pretty much made for binary.

Crazy...I mean....how do people think of these things? My brain literally does not see the world like that.

So the binary codes that represent things- are these arbitrary definitions? How does one know how something is represented in binary?

 

[rawr]

Crazy...I mean....how do people think of these things? My brain literally does not see the world like that.

So the binary codes that represent things- are these arbitrary definitions? How does one know how something is represented in binary?

they're definitely not arbitrary - being so would ruin the functionality of the code. - arbitrary when created, sure, but fixed into the systems after that.

at a very basic level, they represent on or off, 1 or 0. This is a bit.

Going past this, a string of binary represents a number. they work in powers of 2, starting at 2 to the zeroth at the rightmost, then increase one power each time. Usually grouped in 8 bits. This is a byte.

So 00010011 would represent the number 19.

Going further they can represent hex (mix of alphabetical characters A-F and numbers).

Going higher they can form lines of text, and most importantly, translate to computer instructions.

( @sprinkles - i realize this is the messiest explanation ever. If you can think of a better way, break a leg )

 

[sprinkles]

Crazy...I mean....how do people think of these things? My brain literally does not see the world like that.

So the binary codes that represent things- are these arbitrary definitions? How does one know how something is represented in binary?

They came up with a system and standardized it. The representation is arbitrary and invented. We're just fortunate enough that it became a defacto standard - in the early days there were variations of binary 'language' but now we have standards such as ASCII

 

[say what]

they're definitely not arbitrary - being so would ruin the functionality of the code.

at a very basic level, they represent on or off, 1 or 0. This is a bit.

Going past this, a string of binary represents a number. they work in powers of 2, starting at 2 to the zeroth at the rightmost, then increase one power each time. Usually grouped in 8 bits. This is a byte.

So 00010011 would represent the number 19.

Going further they can represent hex (mix of alphabetical characters A-F and numbers).

Going higher they can form lines of text, and most importantly, translate to computer instructions.

( [MENTION=6917]sprinkles[/MENTION] - i realize this is the messiest explanation ever. If you can think of a better way, break a leg )

Hmmm....I took a GIS course a few years ago, and we discuss binary in super simple terms...so I understand numbers on a basic level...but I mean, how can I see all these cat pictures? They're actually just a combination of 0s and 1s, correct? How does something go from that, to a picture? And how can we have such a variety of pictures? How can a picture that I take of my life at this moment, be represented in numbers? Like....it just blows my mind. Can life just be a set of numbers?

ok...I need to go to bed before I break myself with this! (And potentially break the two of you hehehehe)

 

[Lerxst]

The ISP I worked for as a Tech would probably agree that it's only as infinite as your bank account. All those fiber optic lines cost money, the routers and switches cost money, the wooden poles the wires are hanging from cost money, the microwave dishes cost money, the physical tower assemblies (that hold the dishes) cost money, the people paid to maintain them cost money, etc.

That doesn't even begin to cover the convoluted aspects like domain registrations, different provider tiers, organizations like ARIN and so on. Everything on the Internet has a limitation of some sort. Even the original format for IP addresses, which people thought would never go beyond a certain number, proved to be a limiting factor.

 

[54tjsioU]

Lol [MENTION=10252]say what[/MENTION] writers/artists have gone down this line of thought and ended up producing artificial intelligence movies and books where the computers turn to self maintaining robots, given human form and intelligence in an apocalyptic, "Must devour all information" robots vs humans wasteland! Because if the internet could take care of itself it could be infinite. Imagination is fun

 

[sprinkles]

Hmmm....I took a GIS course a few years ago, and we discuss binary in super simple terms...so I understand numbers on a basic level...but I mean, how can I see all these cat pictures? They're actually just a combination of 0s and 1s, correct? How does something go from that, to a picture? And how can we have such a variety of pictures? How can a picture that I take of my life at this moment, be represented in numbers? Like....it just blows my mind. Can life just be a set of numbers?

ok...I need to go to bed before I break myself with this! (And potentially break the two of you hehehehe)

The CPU has built in logic instructions in it and it runs like a simple program in assembly language that loops in cycles, waiting for your input at any given moment. It has its own instruction codes held in registers which tell it what to do next. It decodes these instructions into actions which allow it to load more instructions - programs on your hard drive for example - into memory to do more complex actions, such as talking to your video chip and having it display something by reading the 1s and 0s off a specific location on your hard drive and translating it to an image on your screen.

 

[Rift Zone]

Every part of the web, visible or deep/dark, P2P or client/server, is dependent on physical mediums (even virtualized instances depend on physical boxes.) and is therefore finite. We're still in transition (though on the tail end) to IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6), which greatly expands the "space of the internet" by providing more addresses for connectivity. Theoretically this model should give us 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses (meaning, that many physical devices can connect to the web.)


While that's an obscenely large number, it is still, by definition, countable, and thus finite.


(That's 2^128 for all you math nerds out there.)

Interesting. But in theory, the internet is infinite, it's just the materials that are finite.

but is the internet created, or does it exist without human creation?


...maybe I'm just confusing myself now.

I agree with both of you. The amount of connections may be limited to 2^128 and the amount of data could be a number of magnitude s greater. No matter how big we make it, it is and shall remain finite. But what we put there is limited only by our imaginations. That is infinite.

 

[Lerxst]

When you think of binary in terms of numbers and pictures on a screen, the numbers get staggering.

Binary is base 2 math (0-1). Hexadecimal is base 16 math (0-F).

Take this simple color - View attachment 20015

The RGB (Red Green Blue) levels for that are 51, 255, 51 - what you may see "1 level down" like in a Paint program.

The hexadecimal code for that color is 33ff33. In other words, if you were creating a Web page, the number you would type in the line of code for the color you wanted in that area would be 33ff33.

The binary for that is 00110011 11111111 00110011 - what the computer sees that color as.

Not counting size, shape, position, which all have their own 1's and 0's associated with them, a simple green color on a picture requires the computer to process 24 digits. Each 8 digits is one bit. 3 sets of 8 bits means you have 3 bytes. 1,000 bytes equals one kilobyte (KB). 1,000 KB equal 1 megabyte (MB).

So, a picture that takes up 10 MB of space, equals 10,000 KB. That equals 80,000 bytes. That equals 640,000 bits. That's 640,000 1's and 0's a computer has to process to display a relatively simple image!

Want to do that math for a high-def, 1GB (1,000 MB) image?!?!

1 GB = 1,000 MB = 1,000,000 KB = 8,000,000 bytes = 640,000,000 bits


Now, in terms of your original post, think of how many bits that means are floating around the Internet...!!!!

 

[sprinkles]

When you think of binary in terms of numbers and pictures on a screen, the numbers get staggering.

Binary is base 2 math (0-1). Hexadecimal is base 16 math (0-F).

Take this simple color - View attachment 20015

The RGB (Red Green Blue) levels for that are 51, 255, 51 - what you may see "1 level down" like in a Paint program.

The hexadecimal code for that color is 33ff33. In other words, if you were creating a Web page, the number you would type in the line of code for the color you wanted in that area would be 33ff33.

The binary for that is 00110011 11111111 00110011 - what the computer sees that color as.

Not counting size, shape, position, which all have their own 1's and 0's associated with them, a simple green color on a picture requires the computer to process 24 digits. Each 8 digits is one bit. 3 sets of 8 bits means you have 3 bytes. 1,000 bytes equals one kilobyte (KB). 1,000 KB equal 1 megabyte (MB).

So, a picture that takes up 10 MB of space, equals 10,000 KB. That equals 80,000 bytes. That equals 640,000 bits. That's 640,000 1's and 0's a computer has to process to display a relatively simple image!

Want to do that math for a high-def, 1GB (1,000 MB) image?!?!

1 GB = 1,000 MB = 1,000,000 KB = 8,000,000 bytes = 640,000,000 bits


Now, in terms of your original post, think of how many bits that means are floating around the Internet...!!!!

http://andygreenhaw.wordpress.com/tag/how-much-data-exists-online/

Still small on cosmic scales. They compare the amount of data on the internet to a stack of iPads 339 miles high. That's like nothing compared to infinity. The distance to the moon is 700 times that, and the distance to the sun is over 270,000 times that.

 

[Barnabas]

interesting...I really don't understand the internet...where "is" everything?

Functionally the internet is like a closed magic system, where parts of it can be understood and explained but never as a whole.

 

[sprinkles]

Functionally the internet is like a closed magic system, where parts of it can be understood and explained but never as a whole.

Well if you understand the parts you can extrapolate a good idea about the whole.

This is a binary adding machine that I made in Minecraft which goes through decoders into hex, which displays the result on two 7 segment displays. It can add two numbers together and also store numbers in memory, and can activate or deactivate the memory with a selector bus and also has a button to clear the memory. Knowing something like this gets you a good idea of how things can go from binary to human readable, even though in an actual computer it is a whole lot bigger and more complex. Basic principles are similar.

Unfortunately you can't see the 7 segment output with this video quality, but there's indicator lights up on the input deck area which also shows the results in binary.

[video=youtube;1Jx7JHjBOaY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jx7JHjBOaY[/video]

 

[Matt3737]

interesting...I really don't understand the internet...where "is" everything?

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve several billion users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW), the infrastructure to support email, and peer-to-peer networks.

Mostly on large server databases.

Interesting. But in theory, the internet is infinite, it's just the materials that are finite.
but is the internet created, or does it exist without human creation?
...maybe I'm just confusing myself now.

The concept of infinity itself is a confounding philosophical abstraction that can be represented in many ways through computation. Language, as is mathematics, is essentially infinite in its range of possible expressions.

Human language has the properties of productivity, recursivity, and displacement, and relies entirely on social convention and learning. Its complex structure affords a much wider range of expressions than any known system of animal communication.

Human language is unique in comparison to other forms of communication, such as those used by non-human animals. Communication systems used by other animals such as bees or non-human apes are closed systems that consist of a closed number of possible things that can be expressed.

In contrast, human language is open-ended and productive, meaning that it allows humans to produce an infinite set of utterances from a finite set of elements and to create new words and sentences. This is possible because human language is based on a dual code, where a finite number of meaningless elements (e.g. sounds, letters or gestures) can be combined to form units of meaning (words and sentences). Furthermore, the symbols and grammatical rules of any particular language are largely arbitrary, meaning that the system can only be acquired through social interaction. The known systems of communication used by animals, on the other hand, can only express a finite number of utterances that are mostly genetically transmitted.

Recursion, both in language and mathematics, is the process by which we typically understand and define infinity.

One of the most well known instances that was discovered and explored using computational techniques was the Mandelbrot set of complex numbers. The Mandelbrot set is a bounded and defined set, yet contains an infinitude of patternings:

[video=youtube;5qXSeNKXNPQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qXSeNKXNPQ[/video]

I find it difficult to understand/comprehend how space (such as bytes) is made, and how information is stored in it.

Let's use the example of an optical disc that uses a laser to read information off of it:

In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc (OD) is a flat, usually circular disc which encodes binary data (bits) in the form of pits (binary value of 0 or off, due to lack of reflection when read) and lands (binary value of 1 or on, due to a reflection when read) on a special material (often aluminium) on one of its flat surfaces.

A Blu-Ray disc can hold more information on the same size disc because the laser that reads it is actually blue rather than red, which is a smaller wavelength. This means that the pits can be smaller and hence the disc may contain more of them. It is similar to writing an essay using college ruled notebook paper over wide ruled paper.

The name Blu-ray Disc refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs.

Hmmm....I took a GIS course a few years ago, and we discuss binary in super simple terms...so I understand numbers on a basic level...but I mean, how can I see all these cat pictures? They're actually just a combination of 0s and 1s, correct? How does something go from that, to a picture? And how can we have such a variety of pictures? How can a picture that I take of my life at this moment, be represented in numbers? Like....it just blows my mind. Can life just be a set of numbers?
ok...I need to go to bed before I break myself with this! (And potentially break the two of you hehehehe)

Images on a screen are spread across numerous pixels that typically use red, green, and blue in varied combinations to produce said image.

In digital imaging, a pixel, pel, or picture element is a physical point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable element in an all points addressable display device; so it is the smallest controllable element of a picture represented on the screen. The address of a pixel corresponds to its physical coordinates. LCD pixels are manufactured in a two-dimensional grid, and are often represented using dots or squares, but CRT pixels correspond to their timing mechanisms and sweep rates.

Each pixel is a sample of an original image; more samples typically provide more accurate representations of the original. The intensity of each pixel is variable. In color image systems, a color is typically represented by three or four component intensities such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

 

[Tin Man]

hahaha! Yeah- it makes my head hurt!

I prefer understanding people, and like to believe things like the internet are magic!

The problem is that you're looking at it from a broad perspective. You only see the end result, such as posting cat pictures, rather than the technology involved; the years of experimentation and implementation; the testing and fixing; and the advancement from Gottfried Leibniz's Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire to the introduction of terabyte internet today.

It's the same with things like evolution or global warming, the reason so many people dispute them is due to the enigmatic nature of such subjects. Unfortunately the only way to make your head stop hurting is to divest a lot of time and effort into learning more about IT.

 

[Eventhorizon]

No, infinite would mean infinite data and this would in turn collapse into a blackhole. It simply is not possible.

 

[say what]

The problem is that you're looking at it from a broad perspective. You only see the end result, such as posting cat pictures, rather than the technology involved; the years of experimentation and implementation; the testing and fixing; and the advancement from Gottfried Leibniz's Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire to the introduction of terabyte internet today.

It's the same with things like evolution or global warming, the reason so many people dispute them is due to the enigmatic nature of such subjects. Unfortunately the only way to make your head stop hurting is to divest a lot of time and effort into learning more about IT.

I find it difficult to look at something within a narrow scope- I'm so use to looking at the interconnection of things, and the breadth of their impact. This is likely why I get overwhelmed...because I can see how one small swatch of green is computed / stored ...but then my mind spirals into craziness thinking about how all of that information is translated into a real-time image of something....it's absolutely amazing and mindblowing.

 

[sprinkles]

I find it difficult to look at something within a narrow scope- I'm so use to looking at the interconnection of things, and the breadth of their impact. This is likely why I get overwhelmed...because I can see how one small swatch of green is computed / stored ...but then my mind spirals into craziness thinking about how all of that information is translated into a real-time image of something....it's absolutely amazing and mindblowing.

Well it's just a more complicated version of the simple version, happening over and over really fast. A computer is a state machine that runs in a cycle, not much differently than a car - it has a lot of components working together. You start the car by turning the starter which cranks the engine, pumping the fuel in and generating spark and getting the timing mechanism to keep turning and keep the engine running on the rotation of the engine itself, at the cost of fuel. Once started the car idles and is waiting for input, such as turning the steering wheel, pushing the throttle or the brake. This works by many thousands of parts communicating together with physical information.

A CPU is kind of similar in that it is a machine that idles on a cycle waiting for something to happen, except in the case of the CPU the fuel is electricity and the things that happen are electronic, through very tiny switches and circuits. This gets abstracted to the human level as output, such as a picture, but the picture is represented from the physical state of the machine.

 

[j654dgj7]

No it's not infinite. Everything done on the internet has to be done by interaction. If nothing is put into it, it doesn't expand. It's code done by people, not something that literally has no end and cannot be fathomed. The universe is infinite, because it accelerates itself and is constantly expanding without any interaction.

 

[Matt3737]

Calculus is wholly concerned with infinitudes of sequences. There are numerous examples of finite quantities being composed of an infinite sequence using a convergent infinite series. Pi is an example of an infinite convergent series. The internet does, in fact, make use of recursively defined functions that are essentially infinite, but few would consider the internet itself as being infinite because this mistakenly attributes a function/property/part of the internet for the whole. The same way that one might mistakenly assume that any infinite sequence must sum to infinity when it can be shown that it actually converges to a well defined limit.

Calculus is the mathematical study of change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape and algebra is the study of operations and their application to solving equations. It has two major branches, differential calculus (concerning rates of change and slopes of curves), and integral calculus (concerning accumulation of quantities and the areas under and between curves); these two branches are related to each other by the fundamental theorem of calculus. Both branches make use of the fundamental notions of convergence of infinite sequences and infinite series to a well-defined limit. Generally considered to have been founded in the 17th century by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, today calculus has widespread uses in science, engineering and economics and can solve many problems that algebra alone cannot.

[video=youtube;jktaz0ZautY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jktaz0ZautY[/video]