The open-ended universe is a truly interesting proposition. Trillions of years (actually something like 10^40 years) from now, when the expansion is so great that new stars are no longer form, and those ancients of the universe, the red giants, have finally exhausted their fuel, the heavens will be lit only by the occasional collision of brown dwarfs fusing to become new starts, and the explosion of black holes. The notion of anything having ultimate permanence is inherently flawed. All fuel will be eventually exhausted. In the case of black holes, they are slowly shrinking due to attrition of mass, what makes black holes "fuzzy" and will eventually explode as a consequence. Particles are constantly popping into existence, something know as Plank radiation ("A theory is not accepted when it's critics are converted, but when they eventually die" - Maxwell Plank. Isn't that a cheery view of the physics community?), and annihilating themselves because they only pop into existence in positive and negative pairs. The only issue is that sometimes particles pop into existence close enough to black holes that one half of the pair is succeed into the black hole before it can destroy itself and sending the lonely particle zooming off into space (the fuzziness), using energy by separating the pair. Our friend Einstein said that mass = energy, so in it's attempt to gobble up more, the black hole has shot itself in the foot by loosing mass in the process of stealing the particle. As the black hole's mass decreases, this process speeds up, and the black hole eventually shrinks so small it explodes. Think supper nova, then think bigger. Now doesn't this all seem splendidly nihilistic? Not event the black holes will survive in a open Universe. Nah, it'll just be a cool light show.
Slashdot Mirror
The open-ended universe is a truly interesting proposition. Trillions of years (actually something like 10^40 years) from now, when the expansion is so great that new stars are no longer form, and those ancients of the universe, the red giants, have finally exhausted their fuel, the heavens will be lit only by the occasional collision of brown dwarfs fusing to become new starts, and the explosion of black holes. The notion of anything having ultimate permanence is inherently flawed. All fuel will be eventually exhausted. In the case of black holes, they are slowly shrinking due to attrition of mass, what makes black holes "fuzzy" and will eventually explode as a consequence. Particles are constantly popping into existence, something know as Plank radiation ("A theory is not accepted when it's critics are converted, but when they eventually die" - Maxwell Plank. Isn't that a cheery view of the physics community?), and annihilating themselves because they only pop into existence in positive and negative pairs. The only issue is that sometimes particles pop into existence close enough to black holes that one half of the pair is succeed into the black hole before it can destroy itself and sending the lonely particle zooming off into space (the fuzziness), using energy by separating the pair. Our friend Einstein said that mass = energy, so in it's attempt to gobble up more, the black hole has shot itself in the foot by loosing mass in the process of stealing the particle. As the black hole's mass decreases, this process speeds up, and the black hole eventually shrinks so small it explodes. Think supper nova, then think bigger. Now doesn't this all seem splendidly nihilistic? Not event the black holes will survive in a open Universe. Nah, it'll just be a cool light show.
-Frances
IM sn = CzarinaFH