I started to read this book, but never finished it, but the whuffie idea has legs. Stuck with me longer than many ideas from books I did finish. Need to pick it up again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_King...
That's some kind of typo no? I've only heard previous estimates for white dwarf to be trillions of years, that is significantly shorter that 10^1100
Edit: never mind, by lifetime that me proton decay, not how long they shine light
Thanks a lot guys.
I think you've gotten away pretty well.
The same question goes for space. Is there any size to the nothingness? To go further when you have notions like inflation, can you have nothing that is increasing in volume? That would suggest a change in state an thus a sense of not yet ended.
It would be a weird thing for nothingness to change state. It seems like fertile soil for sci-fi. Imagine if space itself was kind of Turing complete and once the noise of matter ended it could start the real work, which of course would be simulating the next universe.
If there are no physical laws, there’s nothing to stop that happening.
The actual concept of time does not exist (at least in my humble year 12 physics understanding and having read Brief History Of Time a long time ago :) )
The researchers calculated that the process of Hawking radiation theoretically also applies to other objects with a gravitational field
The net energy loss comes from the gravitational field of the object, and its mass decreases. We don't have details on just what that means at a Standard Model level, but the net loss of energy means something is going to disappear even without any kind of previously understood decay.
That's not really true. Even Hawking admitted that's it's a simplification he did for his popular science book of what really is going on.
inert rock at background temperature
If humanity survived far into the future, could we plausibly develop ways to slow or even halt the decay of the universe? Or is this an immutable characteristic of our universe, meaning humanity will inevitably fizzle out along with the universe?
The first problem is data integrity and storage. Will the atoms the answer is on, still be around?
The next is, what kind of search engine will we have, with 10^78 years of internet history?!
We don't need to worry, it is highly unlikely that humanity as we recognize it will exist.
Let's give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume that humanity can exist a thousand times longer than your estimate, say 3x10^9 years. That's about as long as we think life has existed on earth, which is a VERY LONG TIME. That said, it's still 1 x 10^-69 of that time period. I think you can see where we're going with this.
“In 5 billion years, the expansion of the universe will have progressed to the point where all other galaxies will have receded beyond detection. Indeed, they will be receding faster than the speed of light, so detection will be impossible. Future civilizations will discover science and all its laws, and never know about other galaxies or the cosmic background radiation. They will inevitably come to the wrong conclusion about the universe......We live in a special time, the only time, where we can observationally verify that we live in a special time.”
A billion is just 10 to the power of nine, and that number of years in time is itself a long, long time that’s difficult to imagine. Looking at 10 to the power of 78 is…it wouldn’t matter much for us if it were to the power of 60 either. (I think!) I seriously doubt humans (as we know of now) can meaningfully affect the expansion or decay of the universe.
They say their findings set "a general upper limit for the lifetime of matter in the universe."
Perhaps we can set up a secret program where AI randomly selects individuals based on merit, character to get the latest in life extension treatments, philosophical and spiritual education so they can guide us (with AI assistence) into the future and beyond the solar system.
If we survive, 'we' most probably don't exist by that time in any recognisable shape or form.
Etheryte•1h ago
busyant•1h ago
coolcase•1h ago