• Question: are shapes infinite and what is the point of infinite

    Asked by cove534sego66 on 16 Mar 2026. This question was also asked by haes534sego66.
    • Photo: Hannah Davies

      Hannah Davies answered on 16 Mar 2026:

      There probably are an infinite number of shapes that are possible. I’m not really sure what the point of infinity is, maybe you could do a bit of research on it.

    • Photo: Alex Hunt

      Alex Hunt answered on 17 Mar 2026:

      Yes, there are an infinite number of shapes. You are probably already familiar with some regular polygons such as equilateral triangles and a squares. You can actually keep increasing the number of sides a regular polygon has until the resulting shape more and more closely resembles a circle, which would effectively be a regular polygon with an infinite number of sides. Using Pythagoras’ theorem to calculate the lengths of the sides of such regular polygons was actually one of the methods used to estimate pi in ancient times.

      I am sure there are lots of uses for infinity in the modern world, many more than I know about myself. One that springs to mind in engineering is deriving formulas to describe some real world applications such as how water pressure changes with depth or how bending forces on a beam change over its length. The process of deriving these involves considering an infinitely small ‘slice’ representing the situation and adding up these infinitely small slices using a process called integration (something you will learn if you do A-level maths).

Comments

  • Photo: Luke

    Luke commented on :

    I’m not sure if you’re asking if shapes have infinite dimensions or infinite variety but I suppose the answer to both is yes 😅

    As for the point of infinity, it’s effectively a mathematical ideal. In physics, it comes up a lot in the models we use to describe the world. For example, the decay rate γ of a radioactive material measures how many radiation events occur per second on average. As radioactive material decays, there’s less of it left to decay. This means the rate reduces over time. However, since it’s a random process we can’t really define a set time that it will exactly drop to zero. Instead, all we can say is that as time tends to infinity (t→∞) decay rate tends to zero (γ→0). In other words, given infinite time it would become zero. If you made a line plot of the decay rate reducing over time it would just keep getting lower and lower but not quite hitting zero, since you can’t draw the plot infinitely long.