dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (08/20/85)
The 1985 August 3 issue of Science News has an article by D E Thompson
on cosmology that offers an interesting time frame from Frank Tippler at
Tulane. Everyone has seen a sceneario for the Big Bang, but have you
seen one for the end of the universe? The article projects what will
happen in a Big Crunch (assuming a closed universe), but that is less
interesting than the following future history for a flat or open
universe (the open and "flat" -neither close nor open- scenarios are
very similar, except that in the open there are some positrons and
electrons left around at the end). The numbers on the left are years
from today in Fortran notation (1E9 means 1 times 10 to the 9th).
1E9 Sun leaves main sequence (big news all over galaxy :=)
1E12 New stars cease to form
1E15 All stars burned out
1E34 All planets and stars gone due to proton decay
1E54 Black holes of solar mass or smaller gone due to Hawking
radiation
1E71 Positronium (paired electrons/positrons) most common "atom"
1E98 My August monthly report finished
1E102 All black holes, even those with mass of a supercluster of
galaxies, lost to Hawking radiation
1E128 Only dim energy left
This should appeal to fans of Olaf Stapledon. I note that in any of the
scenarios described (flat, open, or closed) the Universe ends with a
bang or a whimper, but it does end, and there is no serious prospect for
the survival of matter. This clearly has negative implications for the
longterm performance of most stocks.
--
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgarydgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (08/20/85)
The 1985 August 3 issue of Science News has an article by D E Thompson
on cosmology that offers an interesting time line from Frank Tippler at
Tulane. Everyone has seen a scenario for the Big Bang, but have you
seen one for the end of the universe? Tippler projects what will
happen in a Big Crunch (assuming a closed universe), but that is less
interesting than the following future history for a flat or open
universe (the open and "flat" -neither close nor open- scenarios are
very similar, except that in the open there are some positrons and
electrons left around at the end). The numbers on the left are years
from today in Fortran notation (1E9 means 1 times 10 to the 9th).
1E9 Sun leaves main sequence (big news all over galaxy :=)
1E12 New stars cease to form
1E15 All stars burned out
1E34 All planets and stars gone due to proton decay
1E54 Black holes of solar mass or smaller gone due to Hawking
radiation
1E71 Positronium (paired electrons/positrons) most common "atom"
1E98 My August monthly report finished
1E102 All black holes, even those with mass of a supercluster of
galaxies, lost to Hawking radiation
1E128 Only dim energy left
This should appeal to fans of Olaf Stapledon. I note that in any of the
scenarios described (flat, open, or closed) the Universe ends with a
bang or a whimper, but it does end, and there is no serious prospect for
the survival of matter. This clearly has negative implications for the
longterm performance of most stocks.
--
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
--
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgaryflink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (08/23/85)
In article <281@ecsvax.UUCP> dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes: >This should appeal to fans of Olaf Stapledon. I note that in any of the >scenarios described (flat, open, or closed) the Universe ends with a >bang or a whimper, but it does end, and there is no serious prospect for >the survival of matter. This clearly has negative implications for the >longterm performance of most stocks. Another interesting twist, however, can be found in a 198(4?) *Science* article with a title including the word "Entropy" (so you can look it up in the Reader's Guide to Periodicals). It seems that in a "critical" (what D Gary Grady calls a "flat") universe, if black holes form not only on a galactic cluster level but on ever-larger scales, there could be no limit to the increase of entropy in the universe. That is, infinity / | dS/dt = infinity. / t = now Freeman Dyson says that the correctness of the above equation is the only precondition for the never-ending continuation of life in the universe; given a "sufficiently resourceful intelligence". Civilization woould live off the Hawking radiation emitted from black holes. Unfortunately, the author of the *Science* article points out, life forms based on our sort of matter could not pull this trick. However, radically different life forms might: the author suggests that life based on electron-positron plasma -- if such "life" might be possible -- could endure. The author wisely doesn't attempt to grapple with the obvious philosophical issues about the definition of life, etc., and neither, at this moment, will I. --Paul V Torek, umcp-cs!flink