Slashdot Mirror
Did Harvard Scientists Predict The End of the Universe? (gizmodo.com)
The universe will end with a bang -- and not a whimper -- reports The New York Post, citing a new study by Harvard Researchers predicting exactly when (and how) the universe will end. But Gizmodo's science writer takes issue with the media coverage:
That paper predicts that the universe's lifetime would be between 10**88 and 10**241 years, but probably probably around 10**139 years. "I think people don't have a sense as to how big these numbers are," study author and physicist Matthew Schwartz from Harvard told Gizmodo. "It's such an enormous out of time. But they think 10**139 years is 139."
The universe is around 10 billion, or 10**10 years old. 10**139 is a completely unfathomable number of years... It's more than the amount of time it would take to count every atom in the universe, if you had to wait from the Big Bang until now in between counting each atom. That number of years eludes any rational attempt to understand it (Which is probably why it sounds so close -- our heads just short circuit and say, threat!!!). It is forever.
The universe is around 10 billion, or 10**10 years old. 10**139 is a completely unfathomable number of years... It's more than the amount of time it would take to count every atom in the universe, if you had to wait from the Big Bang until now in between counting each atom. That number of years eludes any rational attempt to understand it (Which is probably why it sounds so close -- our heads just short circuit and say, threat!!!). It is forever.
A range of 153 orders of magnitude isn't my idea of "exactly". The difference between the largest distances (the size of the observable universe) and the smallest distances (Planck's length) is only 62 orders of magnitude.
That paper predicts that the universe's lifetime would be between 10**88 and 10**241 years, but probably probably around 10**139 years.
Since when is "**" the way to write exponentiation on shitty systems that can't even handle an innocuous tag like <sup>, such as Slashdot?
Use a ^ like normal people. Or just let use <sup>. Jeez. It's bad enough that you still haven't got unicode, but <sup>? C'mon.
And yes, I know some programming languages use "**". This isn't a programming language, this is supposed to be a news site.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
"... between 10**88 and 10**241 years..."
I hope it's okay with you if I don't worry about this now.
The first 10**42 years were the worst.
rewriting history since 2109
They can predict all they want. They simply cannot prove it.
"It's more than the amount of time it would take to count every atom in the universe, if you had to wait from the Big Bang until now in between counting each atom"
That... is actually a really great way to communicate just how long that span of time is. That totally blew my mind.
> if proton decay exists.
You may appreciate this short story based on answering that question. It just won Scientific American Magazine's writing competition for stories based on quantum mechanics.
http://shorts2017.quantumlah.o...
In EVERY direction. And don't stop at 10....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"