Why do scientists add infinity to things like bringing a charge from infinity, putting something on infinity, making an image on infinity when it’s just a concept and doesn’t actually exist.

Question

And also get mad at it because it came in their equation so it must hat some sort of mistake.

In: Physics

Answer 1

Infinity and zero are useful tools to think about cases where some factors are incredibly large/small (in comparison to each other or others). For example, it can make equations easier or let you work around situations with multiple unknowns if you can manipulate the situation so that some of these unknowns go to zero, and can be dropped from the equation entirely.