It's Good To Have A Long Term Perspective When Times Are Rough
March 18, 2020 10:13 AM Subscribe
Timelapse of the Future: A Journey To The End of Time A relaxing video where the speed of time doubles every few seconds. Favorite comment: "the video: all suns have died -- also the video: has more than 20 minutes left".
I'm looking forward to (in a manner of speaking) my favorite astrophysicist's upcoming book about this.
posted by rikschell at 10:38 AM on March 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 10:38 AM on March 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
Wow. I didn't know how much I needed something to distract me from the here and now, but, bam, there is is.
About twenty minutes in, as (spoiler alert) the black holes start exploding, I had a real When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer moment.
Thank you for this post.
posted by box at 10:39 AM on March 18, 2020
About twenty minutes in, as (spoiler alert) the black holes start exploding, I had a real When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer moment.
Thank you for this post.
posted by box at 10:39 AM on March 18, 2020
Don't blink around the middle, or you'll miss "Half-Life 3 released."
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:16 AM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:16 AM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Wait, so now it’s our responsibility to create baby universes so they can keep on going? And I was worried defeating Trump would be hard!
Seriously, though, fascinating stuff. Will need to re-read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe to see how it compares.
posted by TedW at 11:46 AM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Seriously, though, fascinating stuff. Will need to re-read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe to see how it compares.
posted by TedW at 11:46 AM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
The Total Perspective Vortex isn’t so bad after all.
posted by steamynachos at 12:00 PM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by steamynachos at 12:00 PM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
It's not the baby universes that are so bad, it's the 2-year-old ones that will drive you right up a tree.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 1:01 PM on March 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 1:01 PM on March 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
Amazing how emotional something can be when there is literally no possibility that you or any of your species will ever see it.
posted by mittens at 1:32 PM on March 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by mittens at 1:32 PM on March 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
(spoiler alert) Not even halfway through and we're at One Trillion Trillion Trillion years. Which is just silly.
posted by Glinn at 2:11 PM on March 18, 2020
posted by Glinn at 2:11 PM on March 18, 2020
i would like to see an alternate version where proton decay does not happen -- what changes if protons are immortal? It would also be nice if they just used scientific notation for the years.
posted by benzenedream at 2:17 PM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 2:17 PM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: the age of starlight comes to an end
posted by Sauce Trough at 2:23 PM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Sauce Trough at 2:23 PM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Amazing how emotional something can be when there is literally no possibility that you or any of your species will ever see it.
Years ago I watched The Future is Wild, which speculated on the ways some species might evolve millions or tens of millions of years hence, in response to changes in climate and new evolutionary niches arising.
Humans were explicitly not part of the equation; easiest just to assume that we all were wiped out in a pandemic or were Raptured away or something. One segment involved arachnids spinning massive webs across canyons to catch drifting seed pods. Not because they wanted the pods, mind you, but because they attacked small nocturnal animals, which they ate. At one point we see one of these little mouselike creatures creeping up to snatch a seed and bring set upon by the arachnids; the narrator gravely announces that what we are seeing is the death of the last mammal on Earth.
Wipe out my species, sure, whatever— two-thirds of science fiction movies do that. Wipe out my entire class, though? Buddy, are you looking for trouble?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:48 PM on March 18, 2020 [4 favorites]
Years ago I watched The Future is Wild, which speculated on the ways some species might evolve millions or tens of millions of years hence, in response to changes in climate and new evolutionary niches arising.
Humans were explicitly not part of the equation; easiest just to assume that we all were wiped out in a pandemic or were Raptured away or something. One segment involved arachnids spinning massive webs across canyons to catch drifting seed pods. Not because they wanted the pods, mind you, but because they attacked small nocturnal animals, which they ate. At one point we see one of these little mouselike creatures creeping up to snatch a seed and bring set upon by the arachnids; the narrator gravely announces that what we are seeing is the death of the last mammal on Earth.
Wipe out my species, sure, whatever— two-thirds of science fiction movies do that. Wipe out my entire class, though? Buddy, are you looking for trouble?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:48 PM on March 18, 2020 [4 favorites]
The seed pods attracted small mammals, not attacked them. Sorry, I am apparently quite drunk.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:47 PM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:47 PM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
A cold, thinning soup of photons. I guess I can live with that.
posted by ZeusHumms at 4:16 PM on March 18, 2020
posted by ZeusHumms at 4:16 PM on March 18, 2020
I really like the analogy of biological evolution to cosmogenesis. Reproduction of universes under selection implies some interesting ideas.
In fact, as much as I hate the strong anthropic principle, the vast improbability of life at any particular moment across this timescale is an argument supporting the possibility that our universe is itself an evolutionary product of selection with regard to hospitability to intelligent life.
From that perspective, our universe would be considered quite friendly to intelligent life in comparison to its ancestors.
On the other hand, we can easily imagine a universe much, much more hospitable to intelligent life.
I'm attracted to the idea that our universe actually is one of those, it's just that we don't realize it because our notion of life and intelligence is really just a secondary product of what's actually under selection. That is to say, conditions for life are favorable enough that our kind of life arises even though it's not significant to cosmogenetic evolution and the real action is taking place at much larger scale during the far more long-lived gravity wave dominant degenerate black hole era when cosmogenic life has time enough to arise.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:20 PM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
In fact, as much as I hate the strong anthropic principle, the vast improbability of life at any particular moment across this timescale is an argument supporting the possibility that our universe is itself an evolutionary product of selection with regard to hospitability to intelligent life.
From that perspective, our universe would be considered quite friendly to intelligent life in comparison to its ancestors.
On the other hand, we can easily imagine a universe much, much more hospitable to intelligent life.
I'm attracted to the idea that our universe actually is one of those, it's just that we don't realize it because our notion of life and intelligence is really just a secondary product of what's actually under selection. That is to say, conditions for life are favorable enough that our kind of life arises even though it's not significant to cosmogenetic evolution and the real action is taking place at much larger scale during the far more long-lived gravity wave dominant degenerate black hole era when cosmogenic life has time enough to arise.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:20 PM on March 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
The seed pods attracted small mammals, not attacked them.
Although that would've made a much more interesting future!
posted by mittens at 4:56 PM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Although that would've made a much more interesting future!
posted by mittens at 4:56 PM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Looking at the credits, they feature voices of more noted serial sexual harassers than of women.
Nah.
posted by miguelcervantes at 5:41 PM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Nah.
posted by miguelcervantes at 5:41 PM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
In fact, as much as I hate the strong anthropic principle, the vast improbability of life at any particular moment across this timescale is an argument supporting the possibility that our universe is itself an evolutionary product of selection with regard to hospitability to intelligent life.
Pure coincidence.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:02 AM on March 19, 2020
Pure coincidence.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:02 AM on March 19, 2020
That is to say, conditions for life are favorable enough that our kind of life arises even though it's not significant to cosmogenetic evolution and the real action is taking place at much larger scale during the far more long-lived gravity wave dominant degenerate black hole era when cosmogenic life has time enough to arise.
I love this. To some gravitational being in the far future, animals like us that manage to cling to life on irradiated rocks, eating the bodies of other beings that photosynthesize, are like mere tubeworms huddled around hydrothermal vents. Intelligent life in the fusion dominated era? Pfft.
John Baez on the end of the universe.
Also, if you wait a really, really, really long time — like e10120 billion years — you might find yourself right back where you started, due to Poincaré recurrence.
posted by mubba at 8:06 AM on March 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
I love this. To some gravitational being in the far future, animals like us that manage to cling to life on irradiated rocks, eating the bodies of other beings that photosynthesize, are like mere tubeworms huddled around hydrothermal vents. Intelligent life in the fusion dominated era? Pfft.
John Baez on the end of the universe.
Also, if you wait a really, really, really long time — like e10120 billion years — you might find yourself right back where you started, due to Poincaré recurrence.
posted by mubba at 8:06 AM on March 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
« Older Repeat after me | “rent strikes against increases. we are not... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by jedicus at 10:34 AM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]