Slashdot Mirror
The Death of A Universe
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.
And some slashdot them headline am grammar did die hot death ugh.
RST
So, if I'm alive in 5 billion years, I'll die in a fiery red version of our sun.
I was under the impression that "A Universe" would be more correct than "An Universe". "An" is meant to precede words beginning with a vowel sound, not a vowel letter.
OLPC Australia
You use "an" before a vowel SOUND in English. So You would say "Death of a Universe" because even though "Universe" starts with a vowel, it is pronounced "you-nih-verse". If it were pronounced "Ooh-nih-verse", the headline would be correct.
Back to your regularly scheduled Slashdot, sans editing...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
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?"
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Oh, and Karl Rove has declared that entropy was created during the Clinton administration and a partisan Congress has prevented W from eliminating it.
Does that mean we'll never get to see Duke Nukem Forver?
Alan Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing"
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!"
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
So our solar system is one of the last guests coming to the party, and by the time we enjoy ourselves, everyone else is leaving again. Gee, we must have missed a shitload of fun. Whatever that may look like.
Tell that to the goatse guy. You better believe he doesn't go around saying "a universe" anymore, that's for sure.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
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.
Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird -- Proverbs 1:17
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?
my pet machine
I for one welcome our old entropy overlord!
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
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.
In the future, all spacecraft will be made of cheese.
The universe has been around for billions of years and extends across unimaginably vast distances and yet pathetic little man with a lifespan like an eyeblink thinks he can offer insight as to its nature or its ability (or lack thereof) to sustain itself? Ha! The arrogance! Not even beginning to scratch the surface! How long has it been since man has so much as discovered the existance of galaxies? Less than 100 years? Soooo Johnny-come lately, do tell about the "nature of the universe"! Humans should learn to shut up and simply observe and not make grandiose statements about how things are as they are in no position to do so.
You're using her as bait, Master!
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!
You down with Entropy? Yeah, you know me! (mp3 link)
as in:
I'm here defending deese two youts...
SCO to Hell
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. 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.
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
Interrestingly enough, Isaac Asimov already told us just that.
-- search the web
Perhaps they will find a way to teleport into the new universe they create, each life form becoming truly a God.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
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.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Announcer: "Today, in our studios, we have an Elk, I mean, an expert..."
Anne Elk: "Not Anne Expert, Anne Elk!"
Announcer: "Yes. Sorry. Today we have a-n expert, not a-n-n-e Expert on... the Universe..."
Anne Elk: "That's right Chris, I am."
Announcer: "An Expert?"
Anne Elk: "No... Anne Elk"
Tim
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.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
One of the guys who did the work:
Professor Alan Heavens
-kgj
...but can anybody tell my how this has -any- bearing, or impact. what so ever on our everyday lives?
maybe people should spend less time working on this and develop something useful. like, say, clean and affordable energy.
Machine9dotNet
Did anyone else notice the name of the compression system mentioned in one article? MOPED?
Mozilla brought you Firebird.
Apple brought you Jaguar (Puma/Ocelot/Tabby).
Now, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey brings you: MOPED!
And people wonder why science has image problems...
Dealing with this topic - "The Last Question" by Issac Asimov. Awesome ending.
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.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
... i thought the blackout was confined to new york, detroit and cleveland?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Now every /. page that loads tries to install MediaPlex. That's pretty annoying.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
It looked seperate when I previewed the submission. I usually just enclose The Guardian in the href and leave the running an out of the href to space it out. I do not know if that was from the editor or a typo I had later. This is the first time I have seen an editor add or change parts of a submissin I have done when it came out so not sure where the bad is but will try not to have a mistake like that again in the futue.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
I think that is the point. There now exists observational data to support the theory.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
The sun will swell to become a red giant until it engulfs Earth.
Actually, it's been recently shown (1, 2) that Earth could survive Sol's expansion, though it would be really frickin' hot!
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
"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 will make it increasingly less likely that the average new stars' light will be able to ever reach an observer.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
>>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.
Huh?
If we pronounced it correctly, we would speak Latin. If we spoke Latin, we would not use articles.
I found the gateway!
Well, if we haven't already wiped ourseleves out by then, I imagine we'll have long since perfected inter-dimensional travel ..
Personally, though, I just found it amusing that one of the astronomers had the last name of "Heavens"
I think I'm breathing again...
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!!
hmm...You have some great points, the math doesn't work out right. But, could you tell me where unified string theory plays into this?
eh, this sucks, I am going back to bed....
Online versions of print papers prefer that people who reference them include a top of site link in place of the traditional footnote or whatever. Sean-Paul Kelley actually got in trouble for not doing that.
That's amusing .. you have to wonder what the power companies send after Him in the form of Collection Agencies. Frightening.
The Universe is dying.
You are not the customer.
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...
It should be *A* Universe
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Actually, no it's not even theoretically correct grammar. The "Y" sound in "yoo-nih-vurs" means that "a" should be used, not "an." An ungent. A unicorn. An uprising. A unicycle. See the difference?
(... and if I had the mod points, you'd get a -1, Redundant, jackass. Arrogant, inaccurate, and yet still repeating an earlier comment.)
- Enough of your borax, poindexter! We need action --
Homer:[fires his gun six times through the wall]
Take that, you lousy dimension!
[the bullets fly toward Homer, but spiral around the widening hole and get sucked into it]
- Oh, there's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I'd
read that book by that wheelchair guy.
Treehouse of Horror VIDid he link to the articles (w/o a direct frontpage link), or just copy the text?
The latter is much worse than the first, IMO.
Most well-designed sites have a big old link to the frontpage on every article. And if you want to put in a frontpage link just to be nice, it should probably be only around the name of the publication, not a big sentence.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Hemos,
You have embarrassed we for the last time. Get an box and clean out you locker.
Loves,
Taco
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
Sometimes I do look at the home page of a site after reading an article, but I NEVER go back to the Slashdot article to do so, just click on the link at the top of the article page (there is always one), or truncate the URL.
My theory, about the universe, which is mine, which is to say...
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
While not a cosmologist, I am well aware that by some definitions a universe is that which outside of which nothing else can exist (or at least be known -- let's not get into epistemology), and I accept the word multiverse. But I am an English major and I have to quibble. I think the words 'universes' and 'multiverse' are both acceptable as plurals, depending on one's meaning and ideology.
An analogous situation would be a monotheist refusing to accept the word 'gods' as plural of 'god' because of her ideology. She is quite welcome call my gods daemons, but not to constrain my terminology.
But, then, what the hell do I know? I use 'octopodes' when speaking of more than one octopus.
Alan Heavens of The University of Edinburgh did the research
...Oh shut up, you know you saw that episode.
That's like an Ice-cream man named Cone!
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
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 question is not of having the "top" link instead of but AS WELL AS the deep link. What purpose does it serve? It just doubles the number of links in the article, adding ones that no one ever clicks.
And as often mentioned, if sites don't like deep links it's easy to bounce them by using referrer checks.
Yeah, the only time I'd want to see a link to the main site is if it was something not well known, maybe a personal site like www.sharedhostingdudes.com/~coolgeek/.
:)
Linking to The Guardian front page is like those "Netscape Now" links everyone used to have on their web page.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
> There's a lot of waggly hand estimation and twocking great big error bars involved, but current estimates are pretty good.
.sig from CaptainSuperBoy, you have to come along and say this. Can I use this?
Just when I get a good
Virg
Well, since the speed of light as been 100% proven to be variable (not C), everything changes. If light gets slower as the universe get older (or larger depending on your perspective.) What happens when light reaches 0 (Zero)? Well, reverse E=MC2 to M=E/C2 == ERROR! Divie-by-zero; please reboot.
Jamey Kirby
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.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Not that it's a grave omission or something but I'm low on karma and desperate to feed slashdot'ers some (mis)information, so I will point out that, over a sufficiently long period of time, black holes will also disappear.
See, quantum theories predict (and some effects of this have been observed, I think) that particles are randomply popping into the universe all the time and everywhere. They appear in matter-antimatter pairs (so an electron and positron will appear together), are called vitual particles and, before anyone even knows they were there, they annihilate each other. The net effect is zero and mass-energy of the universe is preserved.
However, when this happens near the event horizon of a black hole, one of the particles could cross the event horizon and fall into the black hole, thus preventing the pair of virtual particles from annihilating each other. In this manner, real matter and anti-matter is created out of the potential gravitational energy of the black hole. When these real particles meet and annihilate each other, they create real photons that escape out into space and the black hole is seen to be radiating. Theory says that this would cause the black hole to lose mass (shrink), and the phenomenon is called Hawking radioation, after Stephen Hawking who predicted it.
As far as I know, this effect (shrinking of black holes) is yet to be experimentally or observationally confirmed, but it's still pretty neat.
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
What is an ungent? Did you mean unguent? Ungulate? Are you refering to a jar?
So youre replying to the reply of a troll as an AC, you are not to capacity on grey matter yourself..
My One Line Blog has been running that story for days now. :^P
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
twocking great big error bars
Twocking. That's a fantastic new word, and well in keeping with slashdot graamar and speling guidleines.
Mind if I use it?
Warning: May contain nuts
Don't judge a person before you know them, AC.
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
Yes every nation has problems, if you go live in a little town in the USA youll have a similar experience to Europe whats your point?
It's simple. In fact, I came up with it years ago.
10 Big Bang
20 Universe Expands
30 Growth Slows
40 Universe Contracts
50 Big Crunch
60 GOTO 10
Of course, that is not a valid explanation because it fails to state all that scientific jargon. My explanation was more of faith than scientific theory. In other words: "it makes sense to me this way."
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
is there an english translation of this thing somewhere? that does have some detail, but which gets around the forumlaic equations?
(and doesn't entail reading a book)
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."- Friedrich Nietzsche
...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.
I clicked on the Guardian article link and proceeded to pick up some nasty trojan software (2nd Thought, Gator, Virtual Bouncer, and more) that IE (6.0, latest patches) allowed to be installed without a prompt. I would highly recommend avoiding this site, lest you find yourself in registry hell.
You asshats drive me bonkers.
Must every scientist preface every paper, every word out of his mouth, with a treatise on 500 years of the scientific method?
When you watch the weather chanel and an announcer in Atlanta (or where ever they are), says it's raining in Hong Kong, do you put on your asshat and say, "Oh, come on! How can he possibly know that?"
The fact is the weatherman could have got it wrong. But he has a method whereby he determines what he thinks he knows. And he has a certain degree of success. And by the same token, an astronomer has a degree of success/certainty. Obviously, the weatherman probably has more certainty, but only because he's talking about the next five days. Given a weatherman predicting rain on the 6th of June 2013 and an astronomer predicting the heat death of the universe, I'd put my money on the astronomer.
Nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty. But, then, none of these scientists are claiming that they can. What they are claiming is that they think the evidence supports their hypotheses, nothing more.
You would, it seems, take us back to the day when men lived in a world which they didn't understand, which seemed totally random and capricious to them. Rather than try to understand the weather, they prayed for rain. You can go back to that world, brother. I'm staying here.
The profit comes from economizing on apostrophes.
The larger the black hole the lower the Hawking temp. For a black hole the size of the one at our galactic center it is a staggeringly slow process due to the low Hawking temp. They'll all go eventually, but it'll take a VERY long time.
Plus there is the unproven possibility of proton decay further turning the universe into a photon haze.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"Death of A Universe"? The author must have been Arthur Miller.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Then afterwards it would get really fickin' cold!
You didn't take into consideration the possibility of Vogons showing up either.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Obviously the divine creator works for Enron.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
If anybody is interested in a book on the "best guesses" of the future of the universe, I found the following a fascinating read:
;-) )
The Five Ages of the Universe
The Free Press (1999)
Adams, F; Laughlin, G
ISBN: 0-684-85422-8
(I am not the author, and I don't work for their publishers!
Maybe you can't stop the expansion of the universe but how about (pure daydreaming here) if it were somehow possible to exist within the event horizon of a quiet blackhole (no accretion disk) and use time dilation to expand your existence almost indefinitely?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
... when we are reminded of the end that awaits what we are living in ?
Think I am a weirdo, but I don't mind dying much, because I've gotten used to the idea. I don't mind seeing Man and Earth disappear in a bang, because I'm sure we're not isolated cases.
But the idea of the Universe stupidly fading out and getting dark bothers me up to no end. The Universe is so beautiful in its diversity, complexity and immensity that I cannot, and maybe never will, stand the single idea that it could become a large dead chunk of emptiness.
Of course these are just theories, and as some say, it's the truth until someone finds a better suiting idea. Whatever happens, I will not accept the idea that our Universe is a one-shot thingy, with a beginning, an end and a nice short period of a few billion years suitable for life as we know it. Even less the idea that we're seeing the beginning of the end, so to speak.
I want to believe it's eternal. I want to believe the end of the Universe, if there is any end or beginning for that matter, is a so-called big crunch leading into the creation of a new Universe. I want to believe there are some other Universes elsewhere, far from anything we'll ever reach.
Maybe now I can understand the pain that some Christians must stand while science denies a lot of things they thought were true. Like how we were created in the first place...
- Hadriven
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".
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).
I have started a computer project to produce the 9 billion possible names of God in the Hebrew language. Any ./ dotters with code experience can help. The project might be very short lived if I can get my code to run on a good Opteron linux cluster!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
As Louis XIV or XVI said: "Apres moi? Le deluge!"
:-)
Meaning that he didn't give a crap what happened "later."
The heat death of the universe is a LOT later. Maybe Windows won't crash by then (but it may still suck.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Interesting; mass with no energy. I will have to think about that one. I thought mass was energy and vica versa.
Jamey Kirby
Empirical observations and theory are what this proposition is based on, oberservations limited by the tools, and theory limited by our ability to interpret our own findings. We evolved to perceive threats to our survival, like tigers, and SCO. We are not evolved to sense or understand quantum or extra-dimensional phenomena. We are like blind people in a room filled with gadgets. As we stumble across each one we tend to think that must be the nature of the universe. The key is not to understand the object, it is to understand the room, the objects and ourselves in relationship to those objects. And suppose they are right about heat death, what are they saying really? That energy will be uniform everywhere? That matter will all be perfectly spherical lumps of iron? Is that the end? The end of humanity yes, but not the END end. We don't know what was here 'before' the Big Bang, we don't know what caused it and now we presume we have definitive 'knowledge' about the end. I guess we don't need God anymore, these people have it all figured out! Or do they!
the cosmos is simply fading away
So the grammar problems are not restriced exclusively to slashdot.
"It's not suddenly going to get very dark, but it's been getting dimmer over the last few thousand million years and that will continue."
Yeah, I've noticed this.
Really, the guy's name is Alan Heavens? Is this for real? Seriously, I hate to get religous and epistemological but it does kind of make me wonder about how everything got started (I am not a creationist). We figure the universe is 14 billion years old, but that's only what we can measure, right? Isn't it entirely possible that when everything becomes completely entropic and the universe is simply a void of equally distributed matter the same circumstances that initially created our universe would act again?
I think that when they predict "dead stars and black holes" it's neglecting the (admittedly special) circumstances that created everything. We may not be the first universe, and we may not be the last.
As for me, I think I need to drop some acid right now.
It's one thing to make an observation about the universe and try to conclude what it may or may not mean... it's something else entirely to presume the universe is necessarily heading towards its demise, knowing so little about it as we do. It doesn't make you a whole lot better than the people who write tabloid newspapers. One grain of truth spawns a cacophony of sensationalized bullshit. It's interesting to think that science can barely understand the processes behind the ice age and global warming, yet there are those pompous enough to try and predict the end of the universe itself.
True but I do it for all sites in case the article moves. And do it the same for big or little sites. Though the Guardian tends not to move articles that often and has a good archive, I am just trying to be consistent.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
There is a really good resturaunt out there and there is even animals that prepare themselves for consumption after letting you examine the fair first, at the end of the Universe.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
The panmillenialist joke is still pretty funny, though.
philcrissman.com.
Studies (take a look at the publications of Stephen Baxter) of the long-term future of the universe indicate that the period of star formation will be a short and totally insignificant part of the long period that the cosmos will remain habitable for life. During the eons ahead it will be black holes that provide the energy for life and civilisations.
Perhaps intelligent life has come about because only it can recognize and deal with the eventual "heat death" of the Universe. I wouldn't put it past us humans to come up with some way of reversing entropy.
If the article moves, how does giving the top link help? It doesn't tell us anything that isn't obvious. Ditto for the link to the Royal Astronomical Society.
I don't want to condemn you personally, I know that most submitters seem addicted to filling their stories with as many links as possible, but this is a useless habit -- there were already five links in one paragraph actually on topic, adding another two courtesy ones makes an article more cluttered.
Someone might have to help me out on when it happened, but the official line is that we now use a thousand million when we talk of billions here in the UK.
I'm not taking sides. I am just pointing out that you are implying that he has inferior intelligence because of his opinion. Just another case of the pot calling the kettle black. You are both prejudice, just on different levels. Don't take offence though, in my opinion everyone is prejudice to some extent.
Kudos to him for attaching a name to his opinions.
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
Yes, but it's a lot more fun to read the replies than the goatse-grits-type trolls
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Maybe your post got modded down because you're all about the ego competition. It's supposed to be about the conversation.
Thermodynamics simultaneously makes life possible and pointless. Reading about this shit always causes me to become very dpressed. Now, maybe you will be too. Damn, thats pretty good.