Nicholas of Cusa was a
cardinal of the
Catholic Church who lived during the 1400's. He was a great
philosopher,
mathematician and
scientist.
He applied
mathematical symbols and concepts to
theology. To him,
God was the ultimate union between
opposites. His most famous observation was this:
Given a
circle with a
radius "R", a
central angle "A", and an arc length "L", the equation for A will, obviously, be
A = (360*L)/(2piR).
If the arc length (L) stays constant, as the radius (R) approaches
infinity, the angle A will approach zero. The arc length will, therefore, become a
line when the radius is inifinitely large. Every line might simply be part of an infinitely large circle (for, example, the line of
time). . .
Because such a union of opposite - the line and the arc - coincide in inifinity, God is, therefore, inifnity. He also made some additional observations about how opposite extremes met in inifinity as well.