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Science

The Death of A Universe 347

Posted by Hemos from the and-i-feel-fine dept.
ninthwave writes "The Guardian is running an article on research into the visible effects of entropy in the Universe. Alan Heavens of The University of Edinburgh did the research also posted at The Royal Astronomical Society with this article" I dunno - expansion, heat death - it all reminds me of a teacher who said "I'm not a premillenialist, postmillenialist - I'm a pan-millenialist, as in it's all going to pan out in the end." Update: 08/18 16:36 GMT by S : Headline fixed.
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The Death of A Universe More

The Death of A Universe

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  • And some slashdot them headline am grammar did die hot death ugh.

    • Re:Am grammar died (Score:4, Informative)

      by maddskillz ( 207500 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:41AM (#6722874)
      Just to drive the point home, I found this at www.dictionary.com [dictionary.com]: In writing, the form a is used before a word beginning with a consonant sound, regardless of its spelling (a frog, a university). The form an is used before a word beginning with a vowel sound (an orange, an hour).
    • It should be *A* Universe

  • Now I'm worried (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mad-cat ( 134809 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:18AM (#6722658) Homepage
    So, if I'm alive in 5 billion years, I'll die in a fiery red version of our sun.

  • U of E (Score:5, Funny)

    by GMontag ( 42283 ) <gmontag@guymontag. c o m> on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:19AM (#6722681) Homepage Journal
    Doesn't this guy also go on to invent transparent aluminum then come back to the present and give away the formula to a fabricator in San Francisco?

    "Computer! Oh computer?"
    • We already have transparent aluminum...

      It's called Quartz

  • W has decided: (Score:3, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06.email@com> on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:20AM (#6722688)
    Entropy is the cause of the East Coast Blackout. Or as he put it, "enteropie".

    Oh, and Karl Rove has declared that entropy was created during the Clinton administration and a partisan Congress has prevented W from eliminating it.

  • vapor (Score:2, Funny)

    by Gorny ( 622040 )
    Does that mean we'll never get to see Duke Nukem Forver?
    • when it's ready. And when you're ready to receive it. And most importantly, when you're worthy. Now go chastise yourself and prepare for the coming of DNF. GO!
    • >>Does that mean we'll never get to see Duke Nukem Forver?

      Forget it. That game is never going to come out.

      Doom 3 was conceived and coded long after DNF was supposed to be out 'the first time'. Interesting display of how 1 'super programmer'(Carmack) can be so much more productive than a team of average guys(3d Realms).

      wbs.

  • Job description (Score:5, Funny)

    by SnappingTurtle ( 688331 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:23AM (#6722711) Homepage
    Just the other day I was told I couldn't put "minimize entropy" as my job description where I work. Now look what's happening. I'm going to take this article to my boss and say "I told you so!"

  • Gravity and Heat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TuataraShoes ( 600303 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:26AM (#6722737)
    The reality is that we know so little about the universe that we can't even account for 90% of the gravity in our own galaxy. We call it dark matter because we can't see it anywhere but we need it to balance the visible mass against the visible size and rotation of the Milky Way.
    We have only just begun to think about the shape of the universe. As in... What is at the edge, and what is beyond that? Or does it curl around in a sort of 11 dimentional sphery type thing. Figuring out the total heat or mass in the universe is still way beyond us.
    We don't yet have a theory of gravity that works for the galaxy, or fits with electromagnetic and nuclear forces.
    • We don't yet have a theory of gravity that works for the galaxy, or fits with electromagnetic and nuclear forces.

      Don't worry... I'm on it.

  • Universe ripped apart (Score:5, Interesting)

    by no reason to be here ( 218628 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:26AM (#6722741) Homepage
    I read somewhere recently (forgive me, I remember not where) of a new-ish theory that if the rate of expansion continues to increase that the universe will be ripped apart. that is to say, the rate of expansion would be so great that not only gravity would fail, but even strong and weak forces. All matter would be torn to shreds as it accelerated ever faster and faster.

    IANAP, so anyone who is one, or studying to become one care to comment?

  • I for one (Score:3, Funny)

    by QEDog ( 610238 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:27AM (#6722752)
    I for one welcome our old entropy overlord!

  • Does it matter? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ded_guy ( 698956 )
    By the time any of the effects of this are seen, the human race will have wiped itself out anyway. I wouldn't give us more than another few thousand years, much less billions.

  • Interesting, but I don't put much faith into it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by I'm a racist. ( 631537 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:29AM (#6722777) Homepage Journal
    The fact is, we are rather unsure of what will happen as the universe ends.

    When I was an undergraduate, my astrophysics and cosmology courses went into a number of models. The problem isn't that any of these models are inherently wrong. The real problem is that we don't have the observational evidence to choose and properly parameterize any particular model. Hasn't anyone else noticed the constant influx of observations that favor one model or another? I don't think these observations are necessarily wrong either, they are just pushing our techniques to their limits.

    Not long ago, a new and very interesting model was published [princeton.edu]. It fits well with observations. Anyone with a passing interest in cosmology and/or string theory should read that paper, it's very short and easily digestable. This idea is, of course, very interesting. Is it actually the way the universe works? Hmmm, I don't know. We just don't have the observational capability to say with a high degree of certainty how the universe will evolve on a long timescale.

    Sure, I like hearing about the latest measurements and calculations. But, I take it all with a megaparsec-scale cloud of sodium. It's interesting, but not too meaningful, most of the time.

    This debate is definitely going to go on for some years to come. In fact, it may well not have a good answer for 5-15 gigayears.

    • I'm sure this document is very enlightening to those with the property background knowledge, but any paper with the phrase "according to conventional four-dimenional quantum field theory" (page 3) is a bit beyond my comprehension, and I'm not sure if it can be called easily digestable...

    • Re:Interesting, but I don't put much faith into it (Score:4, Informative)

      by confused one ( 671304 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @11:49AM (#6723444)
      It was a good paper, at the time. Since it's publication; however, we have some fairly good evidence that the universe isn't going to slow down and compact in a "crunch" The evidence shows that the universe is actually accelerating outward. Additional evidence, seems to indicate that there isn't enough mass to reverse the acceleration. Current accepted theory is that the universe will continue to expand and thermodynamically "die"

  • The Last Question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sICE ( 92132 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:30AM (#6722786) Homepage
    Interrestingly enough, Isaac Asimov already told us just that [inf.elte.hu].

  • My take on this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wiggys ( 621350 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:33AM (#6722817)
    Maybe the last "days" of the universe will consist of groups of highly advanced intelligent beings scavenging for matter in a dying universe to sustain them. They will still be looking for a way to create another universe, and therefore new life. If they succeed, they will no doubt create a universe with a slightly different set of parameters so that life evolves much earlier than it did in the present universe.

    Perhaps they will find a way to teleport into the new universe they create, each life form becoming truly a God.

    • Hey, you found my acid! Give it back!
      • Shhhh, don't give my secret away!

        Seriously, I wonder if my scenario will come true - life has this amazing survival instinct; you can find life on earth almost anywhere, from the deepest ocean to the highest mountain, from the coldest places to the hottest.

        Faced with a problem so huge (a dying universe), the likely millions of intelligent species which remain will be working flat out for a solution to the problem. Do they somehow travel backwards through time to when the universe was just a few billion ye

    • Perhaps that's what God *is*, the last remaining being from a previous iteration of the Universe, reduced to an emphermal energy-based existence in order to pass into the 'new' Universe or survive its rebirth.

    • Read Greg Bear's "Judgement Engine" for a nice rendition of that exact subject.
    • ... They will still be looking for a way to create another universe, and therefore new life.

      See James Blish's The Triumph of Time (1958), part of his Cities in Flight [amazon.co.uk] series.

  • Holy crapweezles - I followed the link, and all of the sudden Spybot was flipping out and I was being asked to install not one but two pieces of spyware. WTF? Then there was the offscreen browser window. Nice touch.

  • they have neglected hawking radiation (Score:3, Informative)

    by PhysicsExpert ( 665793 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:40AM (#6722864) Homepage Journal
    The conclusions drawn by this article would appear to be fairly trivial at first. Basically energy can neither be created or destroyed and as the universe is expanding the overall energy density of the universe is faling. Less energy density means less luminosity.

    I think, however that the scientists haven't accounted for the effects of hawking radiation, which is basically the energy given out when a piece of matter falls into a black hole. Hawking radiation is obtained from matter that is otherwise lost frrm the universe and as such does not obey the classical laws of thermodynamics. Because of this the amount of energy in the universe is actually increasing although the rate at which it is doing so is extremely slow. As mentioned by the article however the number of black holes is increasing (all matter is drawn together by gravity so in a long enough timescale it will eventually coalesce to form a black hole) and so the hawking radiation will increase. It is therefore likely that in a billion years from now, the sky will actually be brighter than it is now, not from stars (which as the article points out will have disappeared) but from a brilliant glow of hawking radiation.
    • For fucks sake moderators, this is a well-known troll, and he just spewed a bunch of BS and you modded it "informative."

      Hawking radiation is obtained from matter that is otherwise lost frrm the universe and as such does not obey the classical laws of thermodynamics. Because of this the amount of energy in the universe is actually increasing although the rate at which it is doing so is extremely slow.

      Wrong, the black hole loses mass in exact proportion to the energy radiated away, mass-energy is still C


  • One of the guys who did the work:

    Professor Alan Heavens
  • Dealing with this topic - "The Last Question" by Issac Asimov. Awesome ending.

  • um, sure... (Score:4, Funny)

    by cybermage ( 112274 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:43AM (#6722885) Homepage Journal
    it all reminds me of a teacher who said "I'm not a premillenialist, postmillenialist - I'm a pan-millenialist, as in it's all going to pan out in the end."

    This guy must have been fun at parties.

  • 'The lamps are going out all over the universe.' (Score:4, Funny)

    by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:44AM (#6722891)
    ... i thought the blackout was confined to new york, detroit and cleveland?

  • Sad news, Universe dead at ~14 Gyr (Score:4, Funny)

    by Guano_Jim ( 157555 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:48AM (#6722919)
    ...just read some sad news in the Guardian - the Universe was found dead in its multidimensional home this morning. There weren't any more details yet. I'm sure we'll all miss it, even if you weren't a fan of its work there's no denying its contribution to popular culture. Truly a cosmological icon.

  • Earth not to be engulfed! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Luyseyal ( 3154 ) <swaters@@@luy...info> on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:50AM (#6722928) Homepage

    The sun will swell to become a red giant until it engulfs Earth.

    Actually, it's been recently shown (1 [nature.com], 2 [planetary.org]) that Earth could survive Sol's expansion, though it would be really frickin' hot!

    -l

    • That God for government funded studies. I wouldn't have been able to make plans for 5.7 billion years from now had they not stole my wages to do such important work!
    • The first of your links seemed to suggest that this conclusion depended on not taking the tidal effects of the moon into account, i.e. that with the tidal effects considered, Earth was more likely to be engulfed.

      I was amused by this line (from the second link): "Perhaps this 200 million year reprieve will give humans enough time to form their own survival capsules and escape into deep space."

      I think that if we really haven't invented "survival capsules" 5.5 billion years from now, that another 200 million
  • "We live in an accelerating universe now and so, as time goes on, the density of galaxies is going to thin out"

    In my understanding the lights would be observed to go out for two reasons:

    First, young stars form at vertices of intersecting matter bubbles and sheaths, where the concentration is highest. If a vertex reaches a high enough density it coalesces, gets critically hot so fusion can start. Problem is the average density of vertices is dropping, so less will go critical.

    Second, cosmic expansion wil

  • Life is short: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:55AM (#6722967) Journal
    >>Galaxies shine with the combined light of all the stars in them. Most of the light from young stars is blue, coming from very hot massive stars. These blue stars live fast and die young, ending their lives in supernova explosions

    So I guess that Jimmy Dean, John Belushi, Keith Moon and Bon Scott were blue stars eh?

    wbs.

  • I dunno - expansion, heat death - it all reminds me of a teacher who said "I'm not a premillenialist, postmillenialist - I'm a pan-millenialist, as in it's all going to pan out in the end."

    Hemos, this does prove that you have been to a school and even listened to what the teacher was saying!!

  • The Universe is dying.

  • The Death of An Career (Score:5, Funny)

    by doc_traig ( 453913 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @11:32AM (#6723309) Homepage Journal
    Hemos,

    You have embarrassed we for the last time. Get an box and clean out you locker.

    Loves,

    Taco
  • Alan Heavens of The University of Edinburgh did the research

    That's like an Ice-cream man named Cone!

    ...Oh shut up, you know you saw that episode.

  • well, the good new is (Score:3)

    by confused one ( 671304 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @11:57AM (#6723534)
    The good news is we have time to work on the problem.

    phew!

  • Update states that headline is fixed and yet "The Death of A Universe"

    And if you think that's normal, look at the headline aboVE titled "Ask a Music Producer..."

    Frankly, I'm tired of seeing these editors jumble up the English language so badly, and furthermo-

    Hold on, someone's at the door...


    END LINE

  • The lights will get brighter before they dim (Score:3, Interesting)

    by praedor ( 218403 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @12:15PM (#6723740) Homepage

    I believe that the projected time when Andromeda galaxy collides with our Milky Way (they ARE headed for collision) is around 100 million years hence (correction anyone?). This collision will induce a profusion of star formations and may end up ejecting our star/solar system out of the galaxy entirely. Or, we may end up in the Andromeda galaxy as it moves on its merry way, or...


    In any case, the lights are scheduled to burst anew in a plethora of star formation in the nearish future. Of course, several BILLION years later, the trend remains as mentioned.

  • Obligatory Rimshot (Score:3, Funny)

    by GMFTatsujin ( 239569 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @01:00PM (#6724363) Homepage
    ...who won the Nobel prize in 1974 for his work in discovering quasars at Cambridge University...

    You'd think someone would have noticed before then. They were behind the couch the whole time.

    Ba-BOOM! Thanks, I'm here all evening.

  • "Time Without End" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xihr ( 556141 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @01:37PM (#6724784) Homepage

    For a good foray into the future history of an open universe, see Freeman Dyson's classic, "Time Without End: Physics and Biology In an Open Universe" [think-aboutit.com].

    It's worth pointing out that up until just recently, pretty much everyone was sure that the universe would be closed (although it appears pretty flat). The recent supernova measurements indicate a universe that's expanding faster and faster, so we now have very strong reason to believe the universe is in fact open, but when people like Dyson were speculating about the possible future of an open universe, it was considered highly speculative and rather academic (since everyone was sure that we didn't live in one).

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