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Science

The End Not As Near As We Thought 247

Posted by michael from the my-only-friend-the-end dept.
HiyaPower writes: "According to recent calculations cited by this article in TheAge, the calculations that the sun would expand to a red giant and engulf the earth are wrong. It will expand, but due to the loss of solar mass over time due to the conversion of mass into energy, the earth will spiral enough further away thus avoiding the fate of Venus and Mercury. Personally I find this a great relief, I had some long term plans that I had been putting off..."
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The End Not As Near As We Thought More

The End Not As Near As We Thought

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  • I wanted to move to Mars... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07, 2002 @04:50AM (#2797183)
    If only to watch and point and laugh.

    You really do have to wonder exactly why people do so much research into this.

    Is there something they aren't telling us??
    • I'm not an astrophysicist by any means, but beyond the general idea of "increase the breadth of human knowledge and understanding", there's the reality that we are totally and utterly dependant on that big ball of flaming hydrogen and helium 67 million miles away. Any ability to improve our modeling of that warmish ball of gas may result in some insight on how to eventually control it and thus control our own fates.

      This is obviously assuming that we manage to not kill ourselves off beforehand, which remains questionable.

      Long term is heat death of the universe, but if humanity survives those few quadrillion years then I think we'll have "succeeded".
      • I'm not an astrophysicist by any means

        Aye, that's the truth.

        we are totally and utterly dependant on that big ball ... 67 million miles away

        Sure, if the laws of numbers are broken and suddenly 67 is equal to 93. It's called an AU as well - and no, that doesn't refer to Australia.

  • Red giant... (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by digitalunity ( 19107 )
    I was hoping for a spinning pulsar :)

  • I wouldn't put too much hope in this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nzhavok ( 254960 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @04:52AM (#2797188) Homepage
    after all what are the chances your going to survive the asteroid impacts, catastrophic earthquakes, global warming, ozone depletion and the global flooding after the melting of the polar ice caps?
    • after all what are the chances your going to survive the asteroid impacts, catastrophic earthquakes, global warming, ozone depletion and the global flooding after the melting of the polar ice caps?

      Exactly - a link is as strong as a single chain - and humans will only exist on earth while _all_ the required conditions for human existance remain. While this is cool science, it isn't very relevant for our survival as a species until we deal with some of our other niggling problems.

      ... like poisoning people for fun and profit [slashdot.org] ...
    • I have to debunk one of these:

      When the polar ice caps melt, the ocean level does not rise. Why? because as ice they displace the same amount of space as they would if they were water. It is achimedes' principle. It is what keeps ships afloat, what makes submarines work. Consequently, melt ALL the polar ice caps and our friends in The Netherlands wont notice a thing.

      This came from a piece of mistaken research earlier last century by the EPA, where they forgot this. It was an honest mistake, since owned up to, but that has not stopped it entering the public mind, and assorted do-gooders still using it for shock value.

      One thing that can get us is if the ice on the Antarctic continent melts. This is possible, but highly unlikely. Ever opened your freezer on a hot day? Do you get more or less ice? That is probably not a concern.

      So what are the possible problems? is the ocean level rising? Yes, it is. It rises naturally over time due to sedimentation processes, about 20cm/century, IIRC. The thermal expansion of water due to global warming (supposedly, see the ATOC project [ucsd.edu] for more info) is likely to add a similar amount.

      One hopes to disillusion one more person every day....

      • All the same, living in the Netherlands I'm still happy to have all my swimming diploma's... ;-)
      • >Ever opened your freezer on a hot day? Do you get more or less ice?

        A freezer is not a self-containing system.
        Try the same without external cooling system and you might get a better idea.

      • Re:I wouldn't put too much hope in this (Score:5, Informative)

        by pmc ( 40532 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @06:54AM (#2797445) Homepage
        When the polar ice caps melt, the ocean level does not rise. Why? because as ice they displace the same amount of space as they would if they were water. It is achimedes' principle.

        Oft stated, but actually wrong (even ignoring the fact that some polar ice is on land). When the ice melts it melts for a reason - the sea has warmed up. And when the sea warms it will expand. See this Nature Abstract [ciesin.org] or even from USA Today [usatoday.com]
        • I watched a show on The Weather Channel where they were saying that the melted fresh water would contribute to a colder Europe since the water cycle would keep warmer water from reaching UK, France, etc. So, you would get more freezing up north.

          Basically, there are so many factors here, it's impossible to say what will happen until it happens. I dunno... I'm not personally worried until the average temperature is up 50 degrees. Then I'll start freaking out. Until then, I just intend to do my little part and not worry.

          -l
        • Warmer seas melt polar ice, polar ice firmly entrenched on land doe not melt, and only is pushed off by new ice formation. Also, warmer seas give off more water vapor, and lead to higher rates of evaporation, more than compensating for the expantion rate, since this leads to higher precipitation it then leads to greater ice formation near the polar caps, causing giant ice sheets to cover the land, and to some extent even the ocean.
          'Global warming' is merely a misinterpertation of the global tempererature shift required to enter a global ice age. Ice ages move slowly, and I would guess that this one will take another 1000 years to get up to speed with oceans warming enough to cause enough ice formation for continental ice sheets to form.

          Your arguments remind me of the people who said the last tree would be cut down in 2001. Well it's 2002 now and I can see thousands of trees just from where I live alone.
          • Warmer seas melt polar ice, polar ice firmly entrenched on land doe not melt, and only is pushed off by new ice formation. Also, warmer seas give off more water vapor, and lead to higher rates of evaporation, more than compensating for the expantion rate, since this leads to higher precipitation it then leads to greater ice formation near the polar caps, causing giant ice sheets to cover the land, and to some extent even the ocean.

            What on earth are you talking about? Evaporation from the oceans more than compensates for the expansion? Where exactly did you get this from?

            Some numbers
            Water in Ice = 1.7% = 24,000,000 km^3
            All Fresh Water = 1.7% = 23,000,000 km^3
            Water in atmosphere = 0.001% = 12900 km^3
            Oceans = 96.5% = 1,300,000,000 km^3

            (From Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather)

            For a 1 deg C rise in average ocean temperature the change in density = 0.02%

            Change in volume of the ocean = 260000km^3

            or about 20 times as much as is currently in the atmosphere.

            SO you are talking bollox here.

            Giant Icesheets covering the land

            Again - where did you get this from? Sea ice is melting; glaciers are retreating; premafrost is melting; the land icecaps are receeding. Somehow all this gets thrown into reverse as if the temperature increases more.

            Your arguments remind me of the people who said the last tree would be cut down in 2001. Well it's 2002 now and I can see thousands of trees just from where I live alone.

            My argument was that warm sea water takes up more space than cold seawater. If this reminds you of trees then I suggest you get your memory checked.
      • The northern polar ice cap is indeed a big ice cube and will act much as you say. The anarctic cap however is sitting on a continent. That ice is not part of the oceans displacement in any form. If the southern polar ice cap melts, the oceans will indeed rise. Runoff from places like Greenland will probably count some as well.
    • Just a point, I've read that the Ozone Layer is no longer depleting, and although it will take a long time to recover it, the reduction of CFCs in most industrialized nations is contributing to that.

      Things are getting better.

  • This is not worrying (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm not worried about this. It will in most likelihood have died by then. Yet, my estimates may be wrong too...
  • [snip]

    He added that, although the Earth is safe from destruction, life here still faces some formidable challenges in the far future. The new calculations suggest that the surface of the Earth will become too hot to sustain human life for a few million years about 5.7 billion years from now.

    This is about 200 million years later than previously thought - an extra period of grace that humans could use to develop technologies for living on a hotter Earth, such as building communities deep underground. Alternatively, the human race could move to another planet for a while.

    [snip]

    hard to imagine that after 5.7 billion years we'll still be worried about something as banal as the expanding sun. No, by then we'll have figured out a way to transmute our living soul into pure electronic energy and we will roam the cosmos, imortal and all-powerful.

    Or we'll die out. How long did the dinosaurs live?

    On the other hand, we may still be working the bugs out of the missile defense shield. Damn those decoys!

    Sweat

    • hard to imagine that after 5.7 billion years we'll still be worried about something as banal as the expanding sun. No, by then we'll have figured out a way to transmute our living soul into pure electronic energy and we will roam the cosmos, imortal and all-powerful.

      Or we'll die out. How long did the dinosaurs live?

      Well, the dinosaurs as a family lasted for over a hundred million years, but individual species didn't last anything like as long. Ten million years is a very respectable age for a species, though some become extince much earlier and others last much longer. Given our presence at the top of every food chain on the planet, we're in a rather vulnerable position because we could easily wipe out our food sources. I won't go down the doom route, but I'll simply say that it's _far_ from a foregone conclusion that humans will be around even a million years.

      And there are no competitor species waiting around to take our place as articulate and intelligent tool users--apparently we outcompeted the nearest competitors in our niche. That's to be expected, and nothing unusual, but it does mean that worrying about piddling things like novae is a little silly.

      • I won't go down the doom route, but I'll simply say that it's _far_ from a foregone conclusion that humans will be around even a million years.

        OK, I'll go down the doom route for you ;). Even if we assume that local effects (stability of the sun, earth, orbits of other planets) are predictable and non-threatening (big assumption in itself), the chances are very high that another large-body collision will occur before then (like the one that is theorized to have caused the dinosaurs' extinction event 65 million ago). Also, in round numbers, we've got about 25-30 more revolutions around the center of the galaxy... plenty of chance for interaction with other stars or extra-solar bodies. Then there's intergalactic interaction... I forget what the latest estimate is, but Andromeda (M31) is supposed to pay us a visit sometime before 5 billion years is out.

        Or, some asshole will push the button, and we'll leave the roaches and telemarketers to ponder the whole thing.

        • I forget what the latest estimate is, but Andromeda (M31) is supposed to pay us a visit sometime before 5 billion years is out.


          Move along...nothing to see here.

          The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy defines space as big...really big....really really big. You thought it was a long walk down to the corner store, well that's nothing compared to the vastness of space.

          The thing that blows my mind about how big space is would be what you mentioned - two galaxies "colliding". There is so much space between the stars that when galaxies collide, they just pass through each other, nothing colliding.

          Of course, gravity is a bitch, and galaxies that interact kinda revolve around each other, passing through each other multiple times, till they merge.

          Ramble for the day.
          • The thing that blows my mind about how big space is would be what you mentioned - two galaxies "colliding". There is so much space between the stars that when galaxies collide, they just pass through each other, nothing colliding.

            Foolish mortal...how constrained you are by what your senses show you. Know you not that your entire body is empty space, inhabited here and there by point masses called by your scientists "quarks" and "electrons"? Yet these point masses interact powerfully at short range.

      • Given our presence at the top of every food chain on the planet, we're in a rather vulnerable position because we could easily wipe out our food sources. I won't go down the doom route, but I'll simply say that it's _far_ from a foregone conclusion that humans will be around even a million years.

        I don't think it makes sense to talk about humanity as if it were just another species when it comes to extincton. What other species sets up farms? Sure, we may wipe ourselves out, but not in a manner even remotely similar to the ways that the dinosaurs or other species were wiped out.

        • I don't think it makes sense to talk about humanity as if it were just another species when it comes to extincton. What other species sets up farms? Sure, we may wipe ourselves out, but not in a manner even remotely similar to the ways that the dinosaurs or other species were wiped out.

          We could wipe ourselves out, sure. But we're just as likely, or perhaps more likely, to be wiped out in a global extinction event. There isn't a lot we could do about it. Escaping to space isn't an option, or at least, not as yet a realistic method of diversifying our habitats.

          High intelligence gives us a fighting chance, sure.

          But before that happened, I'd expect the species to decline naturally. We cannot assume that civilisation will remain the common, sustainable mode of human existence, or that our intelligence and civilisation will be enough to enable us to adapt indefinitely to whatever ecological changes we might encounter over periods of millions of years.

    • There's an interesting short story by Isaac Asimov called The Last Question [doink.net] that deals with some of these very topics.
      • In place of transistors bad come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

        I'd read this story before, but not since I was about 12. Funny that those molecular valves came about within decades of Asimov's story, rather than the centuries he predicted...
    • We could still be worrying about this if we go through several Dark ages. Humanity as we know it might not even be around at all. We may have killed ourselves off before then.

  • Darn! (Score:3, Funny)

    by ludey ( 302445 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @04:55AM (#2797197) Homepage
    There goes my end of the world party! What am I going to do! Caterer is going to hit me with a huge cancellation fee!
    • Don't you usually only have to pay the fee if you cancel on short notice, like within a couple weeks tops? I'd think once you get into the billions of years advance notice, the caterer should cut you should slack.

  • Human Species (Score:4, Funny)

    by oddsheep ( 221539 ) <slashdot@matt m o or.com> on Monday January 07, 2002 @04:55AM (#2797198) Homepage
    Pointless research - the human species will have all transcended their current forms to become 4 dimensional toasters with great hair.
    • Pointless research - the human species will have all transcended their current forms to become 4 dimensional toasters with great hair.

      Yeah right.. Thats what they all say. You'll have to excuse me If I don't put too much faith in your predictions for the far future. I'm still trying to live with the dissapointment of reaching the year 2002 and not having a shiny foil suit, jet-pack, or flying car.
      • "Yeah right.. Thats what they all say."

        Well then - if they all say it's so, then it must be so. Haven't you heard of revisionist science and democratic rules with regards to the physical world?

  • Solar Output (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Detritus ( 11846 )
    I've read a number of articles that say that life on Earth will be destroyed in a few billion years by increased radiation from the Sun. The Sun's output is slowly increasing as it ages. At some point, the Earth will go into thermal runaway.

  • For those who haven't heard this one before (Score:5, Funny)

    by blonde rser ( 253047 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @04:55AM (#2797201) Homepage
    At the end of a lecture young student puts up his hand:
    "Professor, earlier you commented that eventually the sun will collapse and life on earth as we know it will cease..."

    "Yes," responds the professor, "but not for billions of years."

    The young student exhales a sigh of releif. "Thank goodness, for a moment there I thought you had said millions."
  • Astronomer Patrick Moore said: "In the end, no one really knows what is going to happen. But my message would be 'don't panic'."

    Those of us who have already seen the galaxy on 30 Altairian dollars a day agree...
  • Damn! I guess we'll just have to wait for dubya to turn into the antichrist and have ourselves an old fashioned armageddon...

  • This matters why? I mean, sure, they have to update the textbooks, but why is this worth researching, let alone newsworthy? Can this problem help us solve other problems that need to be solved?

    Any astrophysicists mind?

    • This matters why? I mean, sure, they have to update the textbooks, but why is this worth researching, let alone newsworthy? Can this problem help us solve other problems that need to be solved?

      Um, actually, this is the only problem that actually needs to be solved. What is the point of bickering over wellfare or crime or taxes or wars (or anything really) if we are going to go and cease to exist in the next 10 billion years? If the human species is goint to survive in the long term, then we have to plan in the long term.
    • This matters why?

      The questions they're answering are more philosophical than practical. A lot of people would like to know where we and our world came from and where we're going. This is a stab at answering part of that.

      Knowing that our planet will just barely escape the sun might also reinforce the sense that it's special somehow.

    • Re:Not to be cynical, but... (Score:4, Informative)

      by glwillia ( 31211 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @05:14AM (#2797263) Homepage
      This matters why? I mean, sure, they have to update the textbooks, but why is this worth researching, let alone newsworthy? Can this problem help us solve other problems that need to be solved?

      Any astrophysicists mind?


      Well, as a budding astrophysicist (undergrad physics/astronomy major at UofA), planetary/stellar evolution is quite an important area of research (in fact, a whole branch of astronomy focuses on this. It's even a separate degree program at some schools--planetary science). Also, forgetting to account for the radiation of energy and the resultant decrease in mass seems to be a fairly major oversight, in violation of some of the most basic concepts of orbital motion, such as the fact that the downward force due to gravity (and, hence, responsible for the behavior of orbits) is proportional to the mass of the central object and inversely proportional to the radius squared. Decrease the mass, and the force decreases, resulting in a change in the dynamics of Earth's movement, and increasing the perihelion and aphelion.

      This is worth researching because Earth and its fate is somewhat important to us, for reasons that should be obvious. This will help us model the evolution of the solar system up to the white-dwarf stage, one which will be reached by most main-sequence stars (we think).
      • ... forgetting to account for the radiation of energy and the resultant decrease in mass seems to be a fairly major oversight ...

        While we're at it, did they also overlook tides?

        Just as the tidal friction of the moon on the earth is accellerating the moon (gradually moving its orbit outward while slowing the earth's rotation while friction-heating the earth's core and thrashing the oceans and atmosphere), the earth's tidal friction on the sun should be gradually moving the earth's orbit outward, at a cost to the sun's angular momentum.

        This is because in both the earth/moon and sun/earth system the orbit and central body spin are in the same direction, with the central body spinning faster than the orbiting body's period. Tides raise "bumps" on the central body, which (thanks to damping from friction) are carried forward with the central body's spin and produce an accellerating force on the orbiting body.

        In the sun/earth case the sun's tides on the earth also transfer some angular momentum from the earth's spin to its orbit, increasing the effect. That doesn't happen with the moon, because the moon has already used up its angular momentum and is tide-locked with the earth.

        Nothing compared to the effect on Jupiter, of course. But as long as the earth's orbit isn't in a harmonic relationship with that of another major planet the effect should be nontrivial and the interactions with other planets should inetgrate out to zip.

        So, was that taken into account, too? If not, the start of the bake cycle could be even further into the future.
    • Though the other reasons people have stated are important and true, the real reason one does this kind of research is because they can get published. Not only that, but this isn't hard. Assumming I had calculator and a reference with all the important astrohysical parameters, I could get a rough magnitude of the correction in an afternoon, easy.

      If you're anywhere in academia, then coming up with an insight you can publish after less than 6 months of work is a big thrill. Why does it make the news? Because most people have at least some interest in the fate of humanity; we care about our descendants. Oh, and most people are bad with big numbers and don't really understand how remote 5 billion years.

  • Future Entrepreneurs Take Note (Score:5, Funny)

    by StaticEngine ( 135635 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @05:01AM (#2797222) Homepage
    You can make your slogan "Earth: As Close As You Can Get To The Action, With Your Feet Still On The Ground!" Or maybe even "Earth: Now The Closest Planet To The Sun!"

    Seriously though, 7.7 Billion years from now is a LONG TIME AWAY. I highly doubt that any life form higher than an insect will exist then in a form that we would recognize today. And while possibly providing insight into what planets orbiting other white dwarves we should look to for signs of past life (once we get equipment that can resolve their existance, much less probe their surface), I don't think this is anything anyone needs to worry about today.

    Of course, assuming further checks prove that the Earth will survive past the death of our own sun, perhaps we should leave a legacy to the rest of the Universe by planting the sum knowledge of mankind somewhere safe below the surface (assuming we could sheild it from geologic destruction) and send out satellites to the furthest reaches of the galaxy proclaiming the gift to all Life, everywhere. Just be sure to pack this with some T-Shirts that read, "I went to Earth, and all I got was this lousy Data Crystal."

    • Slogan. (Score:3, Funny)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 )
      How about this:

      "Earth, what a tan!"

      {this below a picture of George Hamilton}

      I like this [google.com] picture or this [briansdriveintheater.com] one.

    • perhaps we should leave a legacy to the rest of the Universe by planting the sum knowledge of mankind somewhere safe below the surface

      Any beings advanced enough to find, retrieve, and interpret it probably wouldn't gain much except perhaps insight into an ancient culture. We might give them a good laugh I suppose. Kinda like scratching "mankind was here" in the bathroom of the galaxy in very small letters. I think a better solution would be to create a whole bunch of spacecraft that fly around the Universe distributing this sum of knowledge.

    • You know, that's actually a depressing thought. Usually, when sci-fi has us find the ancient knowledge repository of an ancient species, they turn out to have been not only incredibly advanced, but also incredibly wise, and their secrets inevitably benefit mankind as result. I shudder to think of some less-advanced race finding our Data Crystal and learning about what -our- race has to offer...
  • I love space/universe shows on Discovery and the like, watch it all any chance I get. But I don't know as much as the next guy because I didn't have any 'formal' space nerd training.

    Why do I write? Read the quote below.

    For decades, astronomy textbooks have insisted that the Earth will be engulfed in an inferno billions of years from now as the sun burns up its nuclear fuel and swells to become a gigantic red star.


    You mean this is actually in the texts? I understand why someone would want to check and make sure that the earth isn't going to be burnt up in a nuclear inferno when they leave for work. Hell, check to see if we should celebrate New Years.

    But when you are sitting there doing all that astronomical math, and you notice the number is higher than 10,000, why don't you just quit?

    Leave the math for later generations.
  • Now a team of astrophysicists at Sussex University in England has uncovered a significant flaw in the standard view of how the sun will evolve, with dramatic consequences for the fate of our planet.

    I've problem trusting the research results from University major in sussing out sex .

    Btw, anyone would tell me why Englishmen had to build University around sex [mdx.ac.uk]?

    (yes, it's a joke, take it easy)
  • wonder if this will happen before MS is actually punished for their monopolistic behavior??
    • M$ will be punished ah, well... I'm guessing it will be cold and rather not to hot.

    • Re:hm... (Score:3, Funny)

      by gnovos ( 447128 )
      wonder if this will happen before MS is actually punished for their monopolistic behavior??

      What, are you kidding? Now thier whole "keep the courts busy until the Earth boils away into a fiery red giant inferno" strategy is all shot to hell...
  • ...and i was going to get on the other ship with the middle management and the telephone repairmen...
  • I guess the game was wrong. Okay, time for a re-write of what happens.
  • All of this sounds very exciting and interesting but i was thinking about intergalactic wireless networks and
    hyperspace travel. I do not know whats going to happen to this world tomorrow - if we humans dont blow up ourselves in the next one hundred years - then we might contemplate something billions of years away but still it would be nice to have old Earth when its time for my incarnation. Doh 4am and out of coffee - /. is my caffeine now.
  • ...there were only cockroaches and Dick Clark.

    -- anthony
  • 200 million extra years?

    Wow, someone must have been very nice this past year.

    ...in other news, President George Walker Bush promised to not raise taxes even if we live unto those 200 millions years

  • 20 Ways the World Could End (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jsse ( 254124 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @05:20AM (#2797282) Homepage Journal
    Actually Discover [discover.com] has an article [discover.com] pointing out 20 Ways the World Could End - long before Sun expanding to get us all. Just telling me sun is a whimpy boy doesn't really relief me at all. :)

    (btw, I think 17 is about the present world. :)
  • YB5 [bbc.co.uk] has quietly passed us by, which is nice.

  • 7.7 Billion years (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mr. Spleen ( 308231 )
    I think it's safe to say that humans won't be around long enough for us to worry about this problem. The rate of evolution of species will make us into something else looooooong before then. Even if we are around, we will certainly have the technology to provide light and keep the Earth's geothermal reaction going long enough to move the entire planet to orbit another star. Hell, we may even be able to refuel the sun and keep it going for another 13 billion years. Humans have only been around for 100,000 years, and we've come a long way, but it's only just the beginning of our exponential curve upwards. Just hope we don't kill ourselves off first.

    Mr. Spleen

  • "That's what I call taking the LONG view..." (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tsar ( 536185 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @05:24AM (#2797291) Homepage Journal
    I thought the Long Now Foundation [longnow.org]'s 10,000-year clock was an optimistic project. Why would anyone, especially learned men of the Royal Society, postulate that human life will exist in its present climate-dependent position even a million years from now?

    We have gone from living at the mercy of the elements to building living environments in space in the span of only a few millennia, with the bulk of the technology being developed only in the last century. And now we stand poised to rewrite our own genome. Does anyone expect that, if mankind still exists five billion years hence, that it will be limited to this puny ball of rock, entirely dependent on this one yellow dwarf? Or that we will even resemble our current selves, either physically or intellectually?

    Mankind may indeed pass through many cycles of near-extinction before the next million years pass. Look at our current speculative fiction. Scarcely anyone attempts to write about the future beyond a few thousand years, because we know it is beyond imagination.

    Perhaps it would be best to say of stories such as this, that the Sun is still expected to continue, without substantial changes, for any conceivable lifespan of the human race as we now know it. Beyond that, we're whistling in the solar wind, for only God can know.
  • u think my webserver will crash by then?

  • So where to go? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jezreel ( 261337 )
    As shown in several movies and recent popul.-charts, humankind will *have* to move to another planet/place due to overpopulation. I wonder where the nearest places are? Do we even have enough ressources to build appropriate spaceships, like, real big and to fire them up? (intentionally not talking 'bout money, there will be enough in case of emergency)

    I bet we'll waste the last drop of oil driving to McDonalds to get one of these new SpaceBurgers(tm)

    • Re:So where to go? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      at some point, we'll realize that we have to make our population like 1% of what it is now, so we'll randomly select one out of every 100 people, or pick the 99%-ile for intelligence, perhaps, and only those will be allowed to live. the others will be given the option of uploading themselves into a virtual software world before their bodies are turned into baby food. This virtual world will be a lot like this one, unless you want to be creative and put effort into developing your own personal world. Most of us will exist in RAM somewhere, backed up reduntantly on disk, of course, long before we have to worry about whether the sun will expand enough to engulf us.

      The question is: do you stay out here in the 'real world,' or go into the the world that seems real in every way that this one seems real. You have a bit more security in this one, but hey, Jeri Ryan (7 of 9) is never going to be your girlfriend in this one, and you can't put Bill Gates on the rack in this one either. The virtual world could model this one perfectly, in all important respects, and perhaps you even get to be God or Q, but somebody will have to run the machine. You could still even communicate with outsiders via Internet, the Internet world being exactly the same whether you're carbon- or silicon-based. Sometimes I read /. postings that seem like they were written by bots whose language module only goes through 4th-grade level, and I wonder if some people haven't transitioned to virtual worlds, unbeknownst to the rest of us. If any /. users are already in virtual worlds, do respond. What's your particular world like? Are you a Q? Details.

      And then again, perhaps I'm just too tired and should stop reading /. till all hours of the morning.

      • at some point, we'll realize that we have to make our population like 1% of what it is now, so we'll randomly select one out of every 100 people, or pick the 99%-ile for intelligence, perhaps, and only those will be allowed to live. the others will be given the option of uploading themselves into a virtual software world before their bodies are turned into baby food. This virtual world will be a lot like this one, unless you want to be creative and put effort into developing your own personal world. Most of us will exist in RAM somewhere, backed up reduntantly on disk, of course, long before we have to worry about whether the sun will expand enough to engulf us.
        The question is: do you stay out here in the 'real world,' or go into the the world that seems real in every way that this one seems real. You have a bit more security in this one, but hey, Jeri Ryan (7 of 9) is never going to be your girlfriend in this one, and you can't put Bill Gates on the rack in this one either. The virtual world could model this one perfectly, in all important respects, and perhaps you even get to be God or Q, but somebody will have to run the machine. You could still even communicate with outsiders via Internet, the Internet world being exactly the same whether you're carbon- or silicon-based. Sometimes I read /. postings that seem like they were written by bots whose language module only goes through 4th-grade level, and I wonder if some people haven't transitioned to virtual worlds, unbeknownst to the rest of us. If any /. users are already in virtual worlds, do respond. What's your particular world like? Are you a Q? Details.

        And then again, perhaps I'm just too tired and should stop reading /. till all hours of the morning.

        Yeah, I miss college, and all of the good weed, too.

        LV
    • Why? If the population increases to more than the environment can handle, then the "leftovers" will simply die off. You are correct that the Earth can only sustain a limited number of people, and that in order to keep growing at our current rate, we will have to find new homes. If you had actually read the population predictions, you would see that the population will stabalize and then decrease by the end of the next century. What do you expect will happen?

      while(true) {
      grow(people);
      while(count(people) > count(food))
      kill(people);
      }

      Maybe your morals are just too great to allow those innocent people to die (or really, to never be born) because of lack of resources and space. Before we focus on building the massive spaceships you request, let's take notice that the population *already* exceeds the resources in many parts of the world.

      • Re:So where to go? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Luyseyal ( 3154 )

        Before we focus on building the massive spaceships you request, let's take notice that the population *already* exceeds the resources in many parts of the world.

        Indeed, distribution is the main problem. We sit here and pay farmers to raise crops and let them dry up and die. Admittedly, many of these crops are not approved for human consumption since they contain alterations we consider safe for Food[tm] (i.e., cattle, sheep, etc.) but not for people (silly FDA vs Dept of Agriculture games). But the point still holds... distribution is the main problem, for political and economic reasons. Some countries hate us and don't want our food; others cannot afford the shipping costs. It'll work itself out eventually.

        That population study in Nature is really good and holds with gut feelings a lot of us have had for years. If we can keep from some World Dictatorship, affluence will help the third world catch up and their populations will drop accordingly.

        randomness,
        -l

  • I really don't see what mental instability would promote the thought that humans - or really any sort of life - would exist on earth after that period of time. Hello, people! There's this little thing in our world called entropy - it makes stuff break. That's everything from the decay of last week's pot roast in the oven, to the atomic and molecular integrety of anything you can name.

    After 7 billion years, there will be absolutely nothing left to evolve, irregardless of whether evolution is a reality or not.

    • I really don't see what mental instability would promote the thought that humans - or really any sort of life - would exist on earth after that period of time. Hello, people! There's this little thing in our world called entropy - it makes stuff break

      True, but that's only a showstopper in a closed system, which Earth is not. Furthermore, we can leave ...
  • This is a relief for me because I was planning to live forever by replacing my body parts with pig organs. The big hole in my plans was that the Earth was going to be eaten by the sun. Woohoo!
  • And here I was thinking no matter what my date field would never need to be bigger than enough to hold 5.8 Billion Years.....

    Watch them blame us poor programmers when all hell breaks lose......

  • Not now, but when? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by labradore ( 26729 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @06:20AM (#2797391)
    Okay, so we probably don't have to start preparing for the expansion of the Sun anytime soon but this brings to mind an interesting question: when do we have to start worrying? In other words, how long will it take to move an entire population off of the Earth? What would we take with us? Would we take lots of minerals? Lots of other species? Would we rather try to alter the Earth's orbit? How long would it take for us to do that safely? How do you move an entire planet? If you abandon the Earth, what information do you record about it to take with you? It seems to me that this is such a large undertaking that if we have to move with anything like todays technology we would want to start at least 50 thousand years before the eminant catastrophy. It seems to me that it would be the single largest undertaking in history.

    On the other hand, if we plan on lasting that long I suppose it would be a good idea to colonize wherever possible. Mars and Venus seem like obvious candidates. Mars seems like a no-brainer but Venus would be the real challenge. Could we alter its orbit and the greenhouse effects in its atmosphere?

    I think it is interesting that we expect that our own species will not last that long. I don't have any evidence for our longevity, but consider that we are the only species that we know of in Earth's history that is intelligent and uses tools to survive. We are the only species that we know of that significantly changes our own environment to suit us and we're the only species that can reach beyond our planet. It would seem already that we are a statistical anomoly.

    • Your post was understandably very human and Earth centric, but us humans will "outgrow" both our limited organic brains & bodies, and our cradle Earth, way before the Sun runs out of juice.

      A planet is an amazingly inefficient place to live in terms of habitable surface area, energy required to leave its gravity well, wasted resources beneath your feet, etc. In fact, the Earth -- after the other planets -- will most likely be "dismantled" by our future selves in order to reassemble its raw molecular material for more useful purposes (like landfill in the ringworld(s) :)

      --

    • Human foresight doesn't extend beyond timescales longer than two or three human lifetimes. It's just human nature. Look at the resistance to taking any action against far more immediate threats (global warming, overpopulation, depletion of fossil fuel reserves, etc.). If the rise in temperature per year stays below a certain rate, people will drive SUVs around until the atmosphere reaches the boiling point of gasoline. People care about their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, but generations beyond that, they only care about in a sort of theoretical sense. Ever hear about that $10 that would be worth $9 million today if it were put in a bank in 1801 and left to accrue interest until now? And yet not one of my ancestors in 1801 seems to have cared about me having $9 million.

      So I have to laugh when I see people suggesting that the human race will carry out these wild survival plans that require 200-300 million years for their execution. Nobody will act on a threat from the sun even when it's a million years off, because nobody seriously worries about what's going to happen to their descendants that far in the future. If the sun were even going to explode in a thousand years, you would still be hearing guys on radio talk shows flatly denying that we should do anything involving any sort of personal or national sacrifice.

  • It's okay (Score:2, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 )
    Because the Vogons [vogon.com] are going to destroy this planet soon enough anyway.

  • Unnecessary (Score:2, Funny)

    by QuickFox ( 311231 )
    This expansion of the sun is such a needless bloat. I tried to tell God to use Linux instead but he just wouldn't listen.

    Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
  • What about the possibility of being fried by the sun, in its current state?

    I remember watching on TLC, and reading subsequently, that the earth's magnetic field is degrading by half every 1600 years. Geophysics isn't my strong suit - Can anyone lend any supporting/debunking information?
  • Great, just great.


    I have been living my life knowing that all the evidance would incinerated.


    Now earth will float around the universe forever as an icy tomb waiting to be dug up, until some alien race finds it and gets pissed enough at human beings to cut earth v3 out of dvd region 1 or somthing.


    You think they could of told us this before we voted for Reagan.

  • In two different physics classes, the profs made a point of saying that an explosion doesn't change the object's center of gravity. Even though the mass goes flying off helter skelter, the mass'es cg remains where it was or was headed. The equations are still solved as if the mass was compact.

    Why would this scenario be any different?

    What's even more curious is what happens to matter's ability to attract other matter when the matter is converted to photons? Does the ability to attract matter vanish when matter transmutes to photons?
    • "explosion doesn't change the object's center of gravity"

      Quite true, as long a all the matter is inside
      the sphere of the earth orbit the gravity will
      be the same. However once it is a long
      distance outside that sphere it ceases to have
      any effect.

      According to general relavity, the attractive effect
      of gravity comes from not matter but energy,
      (actually the source is called the Energy Momentum
      tensor, and includes pressure as well). So photons
      from the sun have exactly the same effect as the
      matter of the sun. However once the light has
      passed into deep space the gravity reduces.
  • It seems that the general consensus seems to be that we will either move to another planet/system, or that we will figure out something to change our orbit. But it just makes me wonder if we'll even last that long. Sure, we'll discover more ways to defend ourselves from various astrological disasters, but what about US? What's stopping us from destroying ourselves? With the advances not only in science, but military. We're discovering more ways to kill other people, and people seem more inclined to use those ways for their own benefit. I think we just need to look at what we're doing to each other on earth BEFORE we can do something as a whole.
  • CNN [cnn.com] has this quote under a picture near the bottom of the page:

    The space rock 2001 YB5, identified by the arrow, could have wiped out France, according to a scientist in Britain.

    Would the British really be all that upset about that? ;-)

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