I find the false vacuum idea spookier than heat death, because it means we could all pop out of existence at any time. I know it would be completely painless and it's not rational to worry about things out of my control, but it spooks me all the same.
Isn't there another followup theory to heat death about the big bang happening again due to quantum mechanics?
I know none of this is set in stone (no Scientific Theories really are), but with what little we know it certainly is very depressing to think everything will end.
Living in today's world certainly is interesting. Knowing enough to have a vague understanding about how reality works, but not enough to be certain of any of it. It's like a baby being able to speak a few words, but it being hardly anything in comparison.
Even if the big bang theory was an infinitely repeating cycle, I don't see any civilisations in space being able to cross over into the next cycle without being obliterated. Then again, I imagine civilisations would cease to exist long before then.
Crash Course Astronomy is a great Youtube series,[URL="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPAJr1ysd5yGIyiSFuh0mIL"] If you haven't I strongly suggest you watch all of the episodes[/URL].
[QUOTE=MegaJohnny;49534156]I find the false vacuum idea spookier than heat death, because it means we could all pop out of existence at any time. I know it would be completely painless and it's not rational to worry about things out of my control, but it spooks me all the same.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps it wouldn't be painless.
[QUOTE=MegaJohnny;49534156]I find the false vacuum idea spookier than heat death, because it means we could all pop out of existence at any time. I know it would be completely painless and it's not rational to worry about things out of my control, but it spooks me all the same.[/QUOTE]
at the speed of light* So we would be able to see it coming. Assuming the first "drop" happens far enough away.
The dark ages don't seem so bad. So long as there is still particles there is still the theoretical possibility of crystallizing some sort of meaningful structure. You could even have it do some sort of function by harvesting the energy of passing particles (as long as they stay close together enough for that to occasionally occur). After that point any meaningful structure would have to not decay even under minimal energy conditions and furthermore its meaning would have to be non-functional. That is to say it would be limited to a meaning akin to that found on a CD.
[QUOTE=Mr.Cthrobot;49534311]at the speed of light* So we would be able to see it coming. Assuming the first "drop" happens far enough away.[/QUOTE]
if something approaches you at the speed of light, you can't detect it until it hits you
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49534293]Perhaps it wouldn't be painless.[/QUOTE]
I doubt it. If the front hit you, according to Wikipedia, even fundamental particles and forces would go away and be replaced by something else, and chemistry as we know it stops happening. There'd be no way you could have a brain with enough conventional signals going to register pain.
What if this Big Rip thing is actually just the Big Bang from the opposite perspective, and each subatomic particle will form an entirely new universe? All of existence is just an infinite set of nesting dolls, becoming 'smaller' and 'smaller' but in relative terms, their contents always remaining the same size. Perhaps beneath the Planck length, there are the laws of physics of a whole different universe, waiting to be born.
[QUOTE=Whomobile;49534274]Crash Course Astronomy is a great Youtube series,[URL="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPAJr1ysd5yGIyiSFuh0mIL"] If you haven't I strongly suggest you watch all of the episodes[/URL].[/QUOTE]
I have watched the whole series, same as biology and economics. It was fantastic
[QUOTE=MegaJohnny;49534156]I find the false vacuum idea spookier than heat death, because it means we could all pop out of existence at any time. I know it would be completely painless and it's not rational to worry about things out of my control, but it spooks me all the same.[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily, there's evidence to show that our universe is a metastable universe and metastability would not manifest for a long fucking time if ever, meaning yeah it could happen but it'll happen eons from now; and you and I will be long gone by then.
[editline]16th January 2016[/editline]
You have to keep in mind that a lot of these theories are based off what we know (particles etc.) and there's clearly a lot we don't know. So all in all I wouldn't let it keep you awake at night.
The universal reboot is a somewhat comforting idea, makes me wonder what reboot number our current universe is, and whether its been here many times before in a different capacity.
It kinda makes sense, and it's the way I've looked at it for some time now.
Because right after the "Big Bang", our laws of physics were determined. They weren't there right in the beginning; the laws of physics only came soon after, very soon..
So, even the laws of physics are not "universal" because, in 10 to the power of 93 years or so, the laws of physics will get wiped away too, along with everything else. And then possibly re-determined, as they did in what we know as the "Big Bang."
And thus, a new fucked up existence may emerge, under a new, unique set of laws of physics and matter.*
[sp]*largely speculative, as the guy in the video likes to insist too.[/sp]
Frankly rebooting The Universe might as well be its only saving grace since it's clear they'll run the whole show into the ground before it happens.
Whenever i see a video discussing the mechanics of the universe it always makes me wonder where the fuck all this shit even cam efrom.
Just, how does existence exist. I cant comprehend it. It makes me feel like a dumb baby.
[QUOTE=Mr.Cthrobot;49534311]at the speed of light* So we would be able to see it coming. Assuming the first "drop" happens far enough away.[/QUOTE]
It doesn't travel at the speed of light though. It travels asymptotically close to the speed of light, so the longer it's been traveling, the faster it is. But if it started far enough away, we might be able to see it coming.
[editline]17th January 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Source;49542115]The universal reboot is a somewhat comforting idea, makes me wonder what reboot number our current universe is, and whether its been here many times before in a different capacity.[/QUOTE]
I think his interpretation is weirdly optimistic. There was a paper by Coleman and De Luccia where they showed that the geometry inside the expanding bubble would be collapsing AdS space, and a singularity would form and the universe inside the bubble would collapse on the order of microseconds. I'm not sure if the guy in the OP's video knows about this. Just listen to how goddamn depressing the conclusion of Coleman and De Luccia's paper is:
[quote]The possibility that we are living in a false vacuum has never been a cheering one to contemplate. Vacuum decay is the ultimate ecological catastrophe; in the new vacuum there are new constants of nature; after vacuum decay, not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it. However, one could always draw stoic comfort from the possibility that perhaps in the course of time the new vacuum would sustain, if not life as we know it, at least some structures capable of knowing joy. This possibility has now been eliminated.[/quote]
One caveat is that they were discussing the special case of a universe with vanishing cosmological constant decaying, because that was what experiments were consistent with at the time, but we now know that the universe has a small but positive cosmological constant. This might change the results. They claim that their results are generalizable to arbitrary cosmological constants, but I'd have to do some work to figure out how the conclusion would change. I'll look into it.
Don't worry guys, we have a billion Trillion years to figure it out.
If you get sad about the universe ending in some trillion years from now... Don't. You will die way sooner.
The idea of cosmic rebirth is beautiful.
The idea of the universe literally dying is fucking terrifying. Yeah, I won't be around to see it, but to me, there's something comforting about knowing life will continue to prosper after I die.
The universe dying really dampers that feeling.
[QUOTE=Spetsnaz95;49557470]The idea of the universe literally dying is fucking terrifying. Yeah, I won't be around to see it, but to me, there's something comforting about knowing life will continue to prosper after I die.
The universe dying really dampers that feeling.[/QUOTE]
I think the opposite actually. We are the universe experiencing itself. We die. Universe dies. [I]Everything[/I] dies.
Kinda poetic don't you think?
[QUOTE=Buck.;49557874]I think the opposite actually. We are the universe experiencing itself. We die. Universe dies. [I]Everything[/I] dies.
Kinda poetic don't you think?[/QUOTE]
That really hits me where I live, brother.
And where I'll die.
[QUOTE=Spetsnaz95;49558590]That really hits me where I live, brother.
And where I'll die.[/QUOTE]
And where dies...
Honestly the end doesn't concern me, it's if there'll be something after it.
This video reminds me of this neat site [url]http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm[/url]
wooooooooooah snip
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