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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.
So as well as peak oil now we have to worry about peak universe?
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
So how much entropy does the fact that this story is a duplicate add to the universe?
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
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
...given the not-quite-set-in-concrete nature of theoretical physics, string theory, and especially M-theory (...don't like this universe? we got more!), I don't think I'm going to sell the house and walk around in animal skins just yet.
(definitely not saying that entropy itself doesn't exist - that much has been proven. OTOH, I suspect there's a whole lot more going on out there/here/everywhere that we simply do not know about yet, eh?)
Besides, the universe had damned well better not die - at least not until I get my flying car, copy of Duke Nuken' Forever (running on HURD), and an army of Linux fembots with a penchant for evil, damnit!
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I should really get that fixed.
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." George Bernard Shaw
Ah well, in a few decades we'll have the technological singularity and the entity resulting of that will be so smart that not only it'll exist out of the entire universe, but it'll also prevent its death or make sure its death will result in a new Big Bang!
> 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?
Does it bother anyone else that a guy named "Lineweaver" is making a car analogy that doesn't involve alcohol?
John
I'm pretty sure this was posted to already.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/06/1641232/Universe-Has-100x-More-Entropy-Than-We-Thought
October 6th 2009
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Fortunately, that quarter of a tank will still get us as far as we need to go and then some.
Yes, fortunately for us, maybe... but what about our children's children's children's ... (* 10^80) children? Won't someone please think of them?!?!
You mean we may never make it to:
- seeing a computer which can run Crysis?
- Duke Nukem: Forever release date?
- Hurd 1.0?
- kdawson leaving a story alone and publishing something accurate?
:-O
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Just because the laws of physics IN THIS UNIVERSE prevent that doesn't mean it can't happen since by definition the low entropy state the universe started in was created (in some form) by alternative laws of physics possibly outside this universe since the laws we know didn't exist at that point.
There's no reason why these alternative physical laws couldn't suddenly kick back in when the universe reaches a certain entropy state and start to reverse the whole process back to zero. Some people would say time would then be going in reverse but this doesn't need to be the case.
So the Universe only has 100 trillion more years before it is all sucked into a massive uber black hole. And then, one big void. And then, the next big bang, and it all starts over again. We're actually on iteration number 42 of an infinite loop.
Considering that red dwarfs are expected to last trillions of years (no red dwarf has ever died. The universe is too young), we just need to move to a planet around one of them, assuming they have habitable planets.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
You're saying that now. :-P
Star formation is believed to end about 10^14 years from now, the total entropy of universe only affects events after that. Not a worry. If protons decay with 10^32 year half-life, then practically all nucleons decay after 10^40 years, which leaves all black holes to evaporate after about 10^99 years.
If protons don't decay as we suspect, then universe slowly tunnels to iron-56, (light nuclei via fusion and heavier via fission) in about 10^1500 years, which coalesce into black holes or neutron stars in about 10^10^76 years (yup, double exponent).
So quite frankly, this bit about more entropy means little for life as we know it, though if life can arise by some heat-engine powered means (due to temperature differences only). still the time scales are staggering.
but all mute if Big Rip is possible, we might only have 22 billion years left!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip
The Lone Power must be closer to winning than we thought. We need Nita and Kit.
after all taxing energy consumption works so well in reducing "heat death" here on planet earth
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I've for one have never forgiven them for Hitler.
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."'
Yes, that's *exactly* what it is like. (eyeroll)
You know, not everything in science needs to or should be translated into every day terms.
I have a few problems with this post.
1) It's a dupe.
2) The article it refers to hasn't been published/peer reviewed yet.
3) Finding out we have 350 quadrillion years to go instead of 700 quadrillion years, is utterly meaningless at this point, since estimates that far wide and ranging will doubtless change a LOT in the X million years it will be before it becomes even remotely meaningful to human science.
Our ignorance about super massive black holes, and the number of them in the universe, already set the error bars on any estimate far too wide for it to be meaningful to even talk about it.
I haven't been this non-excited since they moved the estimates of Graham's Number from 6 < N* < N to 11 < N* < N.
We must do something about this!!! I know, lets start a Cosmic Credit fund to save the universe!
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
factor 966971: 966971
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.'
Super-massive black holes are also known to contribute to glaciers melting in the dead of night.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
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.
"His name was James Damore."
Jack: "The fact is that the universe is going to stop expanding and it is going to collapse in on itself. We've got to do something before it's too late!"
Patrick: "How much time do we have left?"
Jack: "Sixty trillion years, seventy at the most."
Patrick: "Oh, no."
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
Can someone prove to me the method by which energy becomes unable to do any work?
I am very curious about how such an event is even possible, and what the evidence is to suggest that it's actually happening.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
it is... in base 2.
I liked the post above a lot.
Heat death arguments are all about the laws of thermodynamics and there are probably three good criticisms.
the experimental basis last i looked was some system in equillibrium with a container around it and instrumentation outside the container. so in the heat death argument there is an implication that the universe is in equillibrium and the idea of a container and an observer outside the universe is a meaniful concept. To be clear, I am not particularly looking here at something simple like feasibility. I am fine with thought experiments up to a point.
there is a parallel assumption, very deep in the usual science and a lot of math, that the universe is a machine.
emperically, thermodynamics is fundamentally wrong. consider events around the end of the 19th century. thermodynamics was around. the equations were established. in fact, there was, based on a flakey idea that physics was finite, the thought that we knew everything. There were a few unimportant oddities. One of them was radioactivity. so the thermo equations on the blackboard got rewritten. right at that point, thermodynamics did not hold. so what does this say about the fundamental nature of the universe?
...but all mute if Big Rip is possible, we might only have 22 billion years left!
Er, from Big Bang to Big Rip?
Cue sexual innuendo and large space fart jokes in 3...2...
The question is, if our tank is 95% empty, would the speed increase because the black holes become greedy, or decrease because what's in between is too far away?
you assume that tank-fullness linear?!
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
without being a dick?
Fortunately, that quarter of a tank will still get us as far as we need to go and then some.
And just how far is it that we need to go?
I understand that the universe will out-live me by several orders of magnitude... And my children... And my children's children... Etc...
I understand that the Earth will be consumed by our sun long before the universe dies...
But I'm just wondering what "as far as we need to go" means...
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Don't want to be a smart-ass, but since you are being one, I can't resist, too: Porsches come from Germany, not Austria. The founder (Ferdinand Porsche) was from Austria, but the company always was a german company. So there.
OMG! Sorry for the xtra mess, guys. will clean up the entropy when I get back. kthx --- GOD
Though I haven't run the numbers to see if they're remotely possible, I always wondered if all the dark energy/matter, which makes up 95% of the mass of the universe, wasn't the end degradation result of all this, and we're much closer to the end than thought.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yeah I think that was the joke, stultus.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
it's a pun, which fell on deaf ears
One down, four more to go:
http://www.pidjin.net/2010/01/25/iwish/
Warming isn't just global, its universal!
we're all going to end up as cosmic farts.
@rubycodez: Dont worry, at least I got the pun.
/me actually didnt even notice until Anon Dick pointed it out, but still clever.
C'mon man, at least give the Hawk-man his credit.
I am officially gone from
read "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov He wrote: This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written. After all, I undertook to tell several trillion years of human history in the space of a short story and I leave it to you as to how well I succeeded. I also undertook another task, but I won't tell you what that was lest l spoil the story for you. It is a curious fact that innumerable readers have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself especially the ending. The idea seems to drown out everything -- and I'm satisfied that it should. The last question, posed in 2061, was this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age? Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
We'll just have the Logopolitans open a charged vacuum emboitment to E-Space. Entropy problem solved!
Considering that red dwarfs are expected to last trillions of years (no red dwarf has ever died. The universe is too young), we just need to move to a planet around one of them, assuming they have habitable planets.
Us having the ability to travel all those light years to a red dwarf and possibly perishing because there are no habitable planets?
If we can travel FTL by then, why not imagining that we're able to send unmanned ships to build a cozy sphere around the geezer star, and then moving in?
And just how far is that?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This is Slashdot, not Twitter. You don't need to preface your comment with @rubycodez. We can all see that you replied to rubycodez because your post is directly below his and inside the box drawn around his post. You even allowed to post entire sentences here, if you want.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Black holes can contain lots of usable energy, for those that might be in the black holes.
No, there's a large amount of energy inside, but it's all in the form of a high temperature, and there's no colder heat reservoir available to anyone down there that would try to extract useful work from it. (Since nothing outside the singularity is reachable once you're there.) Useful work could be extracted from outside the hole by letting stuff fall in, like the way a hydroelectric generator works, but not if there's nothing outside left to fall in.
There's an asymptotic limit to the universe's entropy that is approached but not necessarily reached, where everything would have fallen into one massive hole, free to explore an immensely large number of quantum states available to it at its high temperature. When you fall in your mass contributes to the number of states (and the temperature). The entropy rises with the logarithm of the number of states. A black hole singularity is postulated as being some single particle with a complicated wave function composed of a large number of available component states.
you assume that tank-fullness linear?!
LOL. Yes, of course. They wanted to give us a "simple car analogy". Or is the tank in your car somehow non-linear?
Benny! We're all Doomed!
Of course, 2012 is when the IPv4 addresses run out and the intertubes slow down to a trickle.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
They gave us a "simple car analogy". Is the tank in your case somehow "base 2"? Practice your reading comprehension before commenting any further.
Thermodynamics says you can't create energy - well then how did it get here in the first place?
Why is there anything at all - there is no good reason for there to be matter, or even energy
..........FULL STOP.
The Last Question is a pretty cool story.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
10^640 years should be enough for anyone.
Except possibly for the developers of Duke Nukem Forever...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
TFAs should not provide us with bad car analogies. That takes all the fun out of coming up with them ourselves! >:(
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
"The Andromeda galaxy is headed directly, directly in collision course with our own. Measurably. It's filling the sky - can be seen with the naked eye. In 5 billion years, which is to say fucking soon ladies and gentleman it's on us and if it hasn't happened before then our sun goes into a red giant or a red dwarf, we go to a crisp." - Christopher Hitchens
Anybody want a peanut?
Thermodynamics won't tell you the why, as that's more in the philosophical (and spiritual) realm.
My favorite idea/hypothesis is that the universe IS a closed bounded system and that the big bang is one part of a expansion/contraction cycle... fits in neatly with Hindu/Buddhist birth-rebirth cycles. Of course the why still isn't explained, but its more palatable (at least to me).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
They gave us a "simple car analogy". Is the tank in your case somehow "base 2"? Practice your reading comprehension before commenting any further.
No. Its obviously in hex, can't you see the "F" and the "E"?
My comprehension is fine, but you may have something clogging your exhaust pipe.
Shhhhh... you're making entropy.
How can you be getting more of nothing by removing it fastera? 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. "Oh jeezers, jeezers help me, the universe is rooned!"..... Sure - now piss off.
.
Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
Heat death my ass - its minus 20C here! *shiver*
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
My comprehension is fine
Uh, no, it isn't. You've confirmed it again.
the first half of the tank is ~2/3 of the tank according to experience... 240 miles by the time the dial reads half, then another 120 miles (on average)... definitely not linear over here...
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
Even if your car had such a bizarre tank, I can't see any "orders of magnitude" difference there between 1/2 and 1/4. You do?
im only talking linearity here... :)
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"