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

Re:As far as we need to go?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Fortunately, that quarter of a tank will still get us as far as we need to go and then some.

And where is it that we're going?

Oblivion.

Re:Entropy increasing, Slashdot-style

[ryanvm]

INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER

[Grrr. Have to thwart the anti-caps filter. Thx Slashdot - Destroyer of Jokes.]

Re:The universe could go back to low entropy

[pedestrian crossing]

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Re:Entropy increasing, Slashdot-style

[jbezorg]

I'm gonna cry if entropy ever becomes "the new CO2".

Well, we were going to stage a protest to have the government stop the eventual heat death of the universe, but then we realized the energy spent in actually carrying through with the protest and the bureaucracy needed to legislate it would hasten the eventual heat death of the universe by a factor of 100.

Facts not in eviedence

[Rockoon]

Singularities are not a requirement of black holes. Until about 25 years ago, the entire universe was theorized to maybe have the critical density necessary to be a black hole itself (with an inevitable "big crunch" producing a singularity in the very distance future), and obviously the universe isnt a singularity right now.

Black holes can contain lots of usable energy, for those that might be in the black holes.

Did you know that it's possible to correct someone

[Anonymous Coward]

without being a dick?

Re:The universe could go back to low entropy

[Sockatume]

Unfortunately completely different laws of physics are no more conducive to human survival than heat death is.

Re:"Fortunately"?!

[iggymanz]

you gotta be kidding, in less than half a billion years the expansion of the sun will make life impossible on earth, the oceans will boil away. Ironic that the time scale to attain life with civilization to evolve on a place like earth is almost on the order of how long a sun makes life possible before it roasts the life incubator. Maybe intelligent life is possible on a place like oceans of moons of jupiter, they might have longer.

If you think we'll go somewhere else, that's very optimistic considering civilizations rise and fall.

"...will get us as far as we need to go..."

[John Hasler]

And just how far is that?