The end of our universe.

February 4, 2005 6:21 AM

The end of our universe. Can humanity survive when everything comes to an end? The trick is really understanding what "everything" is.
posted by davebush (36 comments total)

Add to dark matter and dark energy, dark knowledge. This is such a gloss on the information and ideas covered that it may well be worse than informative, reading it may make one less informed than before.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:37 AM on February 4, 2005

Why didn't they ask this guy about this?

T-Minus 15.193792102158E+9 years until the universe closes!
posted by secret about box at 6:39 AM on February 4, 2005

I can't speak for anybody else, but My Other Vehicle has an improbability drive.
posted by spock at 6:45 AM on February 4, 2005

I'll see you at the Restaurant.
posted by billder at 6:49 AM on February 4, 2005

So all those "duck and cover" filmstrips i've watched were just...hooey!?
posted by tpl1212 at 6:50 AM on February 4, 2005

The ultimate confirmation that theoretical astrophysics is now little more that a waste of time. I certainly hope nobody got grant money for this.

On preview, Ethereal Bligh, spot on. Kaku is a hack, and like most popular science writing, the purpose appears to be to appeal more to sci fi fandom than to actual scientists or those interested in really learning anything.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 6:52 AM on February 4, 2005

Well, we've got some big hurdles to cross before then. The sun is due to expand into a red giant in about 5 billion years, engulfing the earth, so we need to either be off the planet, or have the capability to move the planet, by then.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:53 AM on February 4, 2005

Anybody who thinks our species won't either be extinct or evolved beyond all recognition in five billion years raise their hand.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 6:58 AM on February 4, 2005

I certainly do not believe Kaku to be a hack.
posted by Captaintripps at 6:59 AM on February 4, 2005

How does one move a planet? I understand the get off the planet thing, but if we have the capacity to evacuate the human race to somewhere that is survivable after the sun goes boom (and pushes hot gas and radiation in quantity as far out as the orbit of Jupiter, no?). How do we move a planet, using currently understood limits to physics?


Also DevilsAdvocate, shouldn't you be the one asking this question?

On Preview Dr. J
I am going for really fucking extinct, like salt the earth, vague rumor that once there were humans level extinct, but we should game it out just as a favor to the dolphins.
posted by Divine_Wino at 7:00 AM on February 4, 2005

I would like to see some defense that he isn't hack, despite his academic credentials.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 7:05 AM on February 4, 2005

I am going for really fucking extinct, like salt the earth, vague rumor that once there were humans level extinct...

I'm with you, Wino. Like my friend Fuzzy Monster once said; "Reptiles got to run the planet for a while. Then mammals had a turn. Next up, insects get a shot at it."

(I hereby pre-empt any "And I for one welcome our..." jokes.)
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:05 AM on February 4, 2005

Well, if we want to be pedants, you made the assertion that he was a hack...
posted by Captaintripps at 7:12 AM on February 4, 2005

Um, why is he a hack? He seems to have a distinguished professorship in theoretical physics, and claims to be one of the founders of string theory. If he's a hack, he's a pretty impressive one.
posted by unreason at 7:25 AM on February 4, 2005

I think he was going for the absolute literal definition of hack, though it feels like he was using more latitude with it.
posted by Captaintripps at 7:29 AM on February 4, 2005

Insects run it now.
posted by trondant at 7:34 AM on February 4, 2005

This is interesting stuff. Although, I'm sort of surprised that President Bush has not yet been blamed for causing the end of the universe.
posted by ParisParamus at 7:40 AM on February 4, 2005

Paris made a doody.
posted by Divine_Wino at 7:44 AM on February 4, 2005

Insects run it now.

Maybe they do...
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:48 AM on February 4, 2005

Anybody who thinks our species won't either be extinct or evolved beyond all recognition in five billion years raise their hand.

"Hand?" You people still have hands? How quaint.
posted by iJames at 7:56 AM on February 4, 2005

No.
posted by angry modem at 8:17 AM on February 4, 2005

How does one move a planet?

Same way you move anything else, only more so.
posted by squidlarkin at 8:48 AM on February 4, 2005

Captaintripps: I think he was going for the absolute literal definition of hack, though it feels like he was using more latitude with it.

What 'absolute literal definition'?

From the "OED" (no, not the real [expensive] one):

c.1700, originally, "person hired to do routine work," short for hackney "an ordinary horse" (c.1300), probably from place name Hackney (Middlesex), from O.E. Hacan ieg "Haca's Isle" (or possibly "Hook Island"). Now well within London, it was once pastoral. Apparently nags were raised on the pastureland there in early medieval times and taken to Smithfield horse market (cf. Fr. haquenée "ambling nag," an Eng. loan-word). Extended sense of "horse for hire" (1393) led naturally to "broken-down nag," and also "prostitute" (1579) and "drudge" (1546). Special sense of "one who writes anything for hire" led to hackneyed "trite" (1749); hack writer is first recorded 1826, though hackney writer is at least 50 years earlier.
posted by nobody at 9:00 AM on February 4, 2005

How does one move a planet?

Good question. Larry Niven addressed this problem (expanding sun, need to move the Earth) in A WORLD OUT OF TIME. If you put an engine on the Earth you're liable to rip some crust off and make it pretty uninhabitable. How do you move the Earth?

Here's the plan. You build a huge tube and stick it on Jupiter pointing "upwards". Then you fire an enormous laser down the tube. The heated gas expands and jets out of the tube. This allows you to move Jupiter. You shunt him close enough to Earth that you capture the mother planet, which starts orbiting the gas giant as a moon rather than the Sun. Then you move Jupiter with Earth out to whereever you like. Several billion years later, as the Sun cools and shrinks, you can move Terra back in.

God, I love Larry Niven.
posted by alasdair at 9:54 AM on February 4, 2005

I didn't see anything factually wrong when I read the article, which makes sense seeing that he's a physicist and I'm not. But the article seems like something written by a journalist who doesn't know the science. It seems that way because a lot of things are thrown together that don't belong together, you're given four word (or none) explanations of important theories that don't really explain anything at all, and it's speculative to the point of being absurd.

It sounds neat and I really dug stuff like this when I was a kid, but stuff like this piqued my interest but didn't really teach me anything. As I wrote, it may be worse than not teaching because it confuses and seems like a bunch of real information when it isn't.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:03 AM on February 4, 2005

Thanks alasdair.
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:06 AM on February 4, 2005

Another science fiction discussion of this is the fascinating MANIFOLD: TIME by Stephen Baxter. [spoliers follow] We create sentient squid, which go on to colonise the universe. However, as billions of years go by, they run into the entropy problem discussed here. We get to see their different solutions: first Dyson spheres, surrounding stars with shells and capturing everything emitted by them, then great grids collecting radiation from the decay of the great black hole that is all that remains of our galaxy, then an attempt to capture the remaining energy in what was left of the Universe above absolute zero: they eventually manage to slow down their metabolisms (or energy use) to the point that they would never die out, but live slower and slower.

(This is only a spoiler, I suppose, if you think very long-term, but still... )
posted by alasdair at 10:08 AM on February 4, 2005

Hey, it worked for Galactus.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:13 AM on February 4, 2005

alasdair: I love Larry Niven, too. I would have his babies if someone else already hadn't done so (I would expect him to figure out how I was to have his babies).
posted by Captaintripps at 11:37 AM on February 4, 2005

Anybody who thinks our species won't either be extinct or evolved beyond all recognition in five billion years raise their hand.

When one species evolves from another, the first species does not necessarily cease to exist.

How do we move a planet, using currently understood limits to physics?

What limits? Can't go faster than the speed of light, can't create or destroy mass-energy, can't decrease or even hold constant entropy--how do any of these prevent moving a planet?

Also DevilsAdvocate, shouldn't you be the one asking this question?

It couldn't have been asked until someone raised the original point. :)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:38 AM on February 4, 2005

I meant my skeptical questions based on your nick, was stale before it left my brain sorry.

I meant limits to how we currently use energy and how we can extract it and use it to move things/do work, limits to how big things can be built, having to actually move the planet through physical space and all the damage that would cause rather than just "teleporting" it from point to point.
posted by Divine_Wino at 11:56 AM on February 4, 2005

How does one move a planet?
Same way you move anything else, only more so.

With a really long lever.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 12:55 PM on February 4, 2005

I meant limits to how we currently...

Why would limits based on our current technological capabilities apply in 5 billion years?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:20 PM on February 4, 2005

When one species evolves from another, the first species does not necessarily cease to exist.

True, but there needs to be no evolutionary pressure on the original species in order for it to remain static. We have selective pressures from all over the place.

Also, I was using 'hack' according to its traditional definition. The guy writes pop pieces for money, and the quality of many of these is somewhat suspect.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 3:16 PM on February 4, 2005

"With a really long lever."

And a place to stand.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:55 PM on February 4, 2005

I'm sure these guys would want to say something about this.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:57 PM on February 4, 2005