by Gary Betts

Created on: May 30, 2009   Last Updated: July 18, 2011

I can not only visualize infinity in my mind, but I can also actually see infinity with my own eyes. When I look up at the sky on a clear night in the countryside, I can see a multitude of stars. Some are our neighbouring planets, just a short distance away. Some, however, are millions of light years away. The light we see now came from those stars millions of years ago. Some stars are billions of light years away, maybe showing us light from the creation of our universe. The blackness that covers most of the night sky beyond these celestial bodies is infinity.

I have stared at this blackness in awe for hours, for weeks, for years trying to get my mind focused on the infinity of space. Shivers would climb my spine. That's when I began to imagine myself on a ship travelling through the blackness of space at the speed of light. At this speed, I imagine time would have stopped. Therefore, I would probably not have aged, but I would just keep going in space for eternity. That's what my mind had trouble grasping. On Earth, everything ends. Then I thought, "What would happen if I hit a wall in space? Is that the end of space?" It may be the end of our space, but there is something beyond that wall. Walls always have two sides. If I could get on the other side, I may find something like a dark void with not a single star. I could travel through this void until I reached another wall. But there would always be something on the other side. Always. That is when I finally realized what infinity really is and it made sense to me.

Have you ever seen the photographs taken from the Hubble Telescope as it orbits around the Earth? These pictures are breath taking, but my favourite is the one where you can see galaxies, some as big or bigger than our Milky Way. These galaxies seem to go on forever until they fade at the end of the picture. When I look at this picture, I am looking at infinity. Like the wall, when these galaxies finally end, there will always be something beyond them. And something beyond that something. That's infinity.

I have now found the true meaning of infinity It's more than mathematical equations or dreams. Infinity is real. Infinity can be seen. Just look up at the sky on a clear night. Look beyond the planets. Look beyond the stars that are millions or perhaps billions of years old. Look at the blackness beyond them. You will be looking at infinity.

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