Cosmology and the Dying Universe
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Cosmology and the Dying Universe
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Simon Wiesenthal Send message Joined: 8 Feb 02 Posts: 105 Credit: 80,113 RAC: 0 
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The rate of star death exceeds the rate of new star formation throughout the universe. In other words, the rate of aging of galaxies is increasing. They're still crunching the numbers, but it appears that we may be headed for the Big Chill, not the Big Crunch. What are the implications for philosophy and faith? ID: 188989 ·  |
 The Simonator  Send message Joined: 18 Nov 04 Posts: 5700 Credit: 3,855,702 RAC: 50 
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Don't think about it sounds like the best option. Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge. 
ID: 188998 · |
Octagon  Send message Joined: 13 Jun 05 Posts: 1418 Credit: 5,250,988 RAC: 109
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The rate of star death exceeds the rate new star formation throughout the universe. Where did you see this? In other words, the rate of aging of galaxies is increasing. They're still crunching the numbers, but it appears that we may be headed for the Big Chill, not the Big Crunch. What are the implications for philosophy and faith? What you are refering to is called Heat Death. Heat Death is the result of a Universe that expands forever without any significant contraction (compared to the overall impetus of expansion). If the Universe goes into Heat Death, every particle in the Universe eventually evens out to a uniform level of heat. Every possible endothermic and exothermic reaction between nearby particles will have been exhausted. Matter probably will not be evenly distributed (we'd still have lumps and gaps), but no heat-producing collisions would remain. Black holes will have sucked in all of the surrounding matter and be far enough apart from each other to prevent black holes from attracting each other and colliding (since such an event would produce uneven heat distribution, and in a Heat Death all such events have been "tried"). Everything will be in equilibrium, with no chemical or nuclear reactions of any kind. Needless to say, Earth's sun would have burned out long before, and any kind of fuel on Earth would have been exhausted. There would be nothing left that we would call living. Unless our decendants figure out a way to transport themselves either back in time or to another Universe altogether (this would include "Heaven"), there is no hope of any civilization using any science real or hypothesized persisting in a Univserse in Heat Death. It's a pretty bleak picture... But at least Howard Dean won't be spouting nonsense. No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much. 
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