Universe Closer To Heat Death Than Once Thought

TapeCutter writes "In a paper soon to be published (PDF) in the Astrophysical Journal, Australian researchers have estimated the entropy of the universe is about 30 times higher than previous estimates. According to their research, super-massive black holes 'are the largest contributor to the entropy of the observable universe, contributing at least an order of magnitude more entropy than previously estimated.' For those of us who like their science in the form of a car analogy, Dr. Lineweaver compared their results to a car's gas tank. He states, 'It's a bit like looking at your gas gauge and saying "I thought I had half a gas tank, but I only have a quarter of a tank."'" Fortunately, that quarter of a tank will still get us as far as we need to go and then some.

Comments

30x higher than whose estimate?

[neurogeneticist]

So is this 30x higher than the 100x higher that was reported here on Slashdot a few months ago? http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/06/1641232/Universe-Has-100x-More-Entropy-Than-We-Thought

Re:Entropy increasing, Slashdot-style

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Entropy is actually "the old CO2". Enough of the fundamentals of thermodynamics had been worked out by the Victorian period that the prospect of the "heat death" of the universe became visible. Life is a comparatively low entropy state. Entropy in a closed system increases over time. Game over, man. Game over. There was a certain amount of fretting about this.

Nobody(outside of physicists doing thought experiments and Kurzweil planning his next move) really cares anymore; because subsequent research has uncovered such a long list of stuff that will almost definitely kill us before the heat death of the universe does.

Re:Entropy increasing, Slashdot-style

[bluie-]

best short story ever.