Universe to end sooner than we feared

[Swammerdami]

I'm afraid I've trained my Google News bot poorly. Today I was taken aback when I read the Daily Mail headline: "Scientists reveal exact date universe will end: 'Sooner than we feared'." If the scientists are fearful, perhaps we should be also. OTOH I've noticed that occasionally news headlines contain a bit of hyperbole.

I was toying with the idea of buying puts, expiration 2026, on the S&P 500 index but will be unable to cash them in if the universe ends earlier. I was relieved to see that the "exact date" would be revealed in the article. If the universe ends after August 2026, I can buy the June 2026 puts and have two whole months to spend the profits if the bet is successful.

The first few sentences of the article summarize the revelation:

Scientists have discovered that the universe is decaying much faster than they thought, and have pinpointed exactly when it will perish.

A team of researchers from Radboud University in the Netherlands determined that all the stars in the universe will go dark in one quinvigintillion years. That's a one followed by 78 zeros.

But this is a much shorter amount of time than the previous prediction of 10 to the power of 1,100 years, or a one followed by 1,100 zeros.

I guess my children and I need not get too concerned. If we each live only for the allotted four-score and ten even my great-grandchildren should be OK. In fact if the scientists really are "fearful" about the universal demise, I recommend that they seek some sort of therapy.

The universe has another quinvigintillion years to go, if the team is to be believed. Darkness will occur at 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002025 AD. I'll assume January 1. In Roger Penrose's model most of the universe's protons must decay before the next cycle begins. I can't tell if the Radboud result takes that into consideration.

For those who prefer standard metric units, the universe has only 31 Yotta-quecca-queccaseconds left if the Radboud team is to be believed. Take care before buying any green bananas!

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm afraid I've trained my Google News bot poorly. Today I was taken aback when I read the Daily Mail headline: "Scientists reveal exact date universe will end: 'Sooner than we feared'." If the scientists are fearful, perhaps we should be also. OTOH I've noticed that occasionally news headlines contain a bit of hyperbole.

I was toying with the idea of buying puts, expiration 2026, on the S&P 500 index but will be unable to cash them in if the universe ends earlier. I was relieved to see that the "exact date" would be revealed in the article. If the universe ends after August 2026, I can buy the June 2026 puts and have two whole months to spend the profits if the bet is successful.

The first few sentences of the article summarize the revelation:

Scientists have discovered that the universe is decaying much faster than they thought, and have pinpointed exactly when it will perish.

A team of researchers from Radboud University in the Netherlands determined that all the stars in the universe will go dark in one quinvigintillion years. That's a one followed by 78 zeros.

But this is a much shorter amount of time than the previous prediction of 10 to the power of 1,100 years, or a one followed by 1,100 zeros.

I guess my children and I need not get too concerned. If we each live only for the allotted four-score and ten even my great-grandchildren should be OK. In fact if the scientists really are "fearful" about the universal demise, I recommend that they seek some sort of therapy.

The universe has another quinvigintillion years to go, if the team is to be believed. Darkness will occur at 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002025 AD. I'll assume January 1. In Roger Penrose's model most of the universe's protons must decay before the next cycle begins. I can't tell if the Radboud result takes that into consideration.

For those who prefer standard metric units, the universe has only 31 Yotta-quecca-queccaseconds left if the Radboud team is to be believed. Take care before buying any green bananas!

No, metric units are unacceptable. Only Hartree units are acceptable.

 

[aupmanyav]

Oh, and I was hoping to celebrate the diamond jubilee of our marriage on 3 Feb, 2027. We will miss it by 6 months even if we both live till that time.

 

[Elixir]

I am really bummed to see Swami succumbing to Republican fearmongering.

 

[thebeave]

There is some key info missing from this conversation. The date the universe ends is astronomically (no pun intended) different than the date our planet (and thus life on Earth) ends. We only have a few billion years left before the sun starts its slow death spiral, and so are unaffected by the date the universe ends. So, your green banana purchases should be referenced to a much closer day in the future. Sorry, if I scared anybody.

Good to see Elixir is still on his game. Three posts in on an astronomy thread and already a Republican/Trump reference. Well done sir!

 

[ideologyhunter]

This is on Biden. Toward the end of Trump I, DJT met with his astrophysicist action team (all of whom will tell you that Trump himself knows more than all the astrophysicists.) He learned just before the 2020 election that they had detected clear signs of an early end to the universe. Under Trump's leadership, the team came up with a plan that had a narrow window for success: they would send an unmanned space probe to the Crab Nebula and inject it with about 2000 gallons of disinfectant, which would destabilize the boson/lepton ratio and ionize the pulsar winds, enough to start a chain reaction and reset the universal clock.
We all know what happened. Biden stole the election, giving Trump approximately 10 weeks to secure funding for the probe launch. It didn't happen. Trump tried to explain to Biden about the predicament that was looming, but it was too technical for Biden to grasp (and, admittedly, Trump gets techno-geeky when he gets into this stuff.) Trump was desperate enough to prolong the universe that he gambled on the legitimate political discourse of January 6 to postpone Biden's inauguration and give the probe another chance.
But he lost -- and humanity lost. Next time you're in a diner and you hear people talking about Yotta-quecca-queccaseconds and the boson/lepton imbalance, remember that Joe Biden had a chance to inject the Crab Nebula with disinfectant. And he said No.

 

[Jarhyn]

So, one thing I find interesting about all these theories about the decay of our segment of the universe is that they universally proclaim the universe to be extremely young.

If all the time of our universe was considered as a year, we as humans would be a fraction of the last second, or something like that.

But if we compare our year to the full "year" of history that the universe will experience according to that math, we are in a fraction of the first attosecond of that grander year.

Statistically, it is likely we are among the first... Which is statistically a really fun and useful place to find yourself in history.

 

[Elixir]

we only have a few billion years left before the sun starts its slow death spiral, and so are unaffected by the date the universe ends.

Speak for yourself!
Y'all can sit around and burn as the sun expands, or more the hell out of the way of the growing inferno.
We have at least a few million years to pack our shit and get out of Dodge. No excuses!

 

[Swammerdami]

So, one thing I find interesting about all these theories about the decay of our segment of the universe is that they universally proclaim the universe to be extremely young.

If all the time of our universe was considered as a year, we as humans would be a fraction of the last second, or something like that.

But if we compare our year to the full "year" of history that the universe will experience according to that math, we are in a fraction of the first attosecond of that grander year.

Statistically, it is likely we are among the first... Which is statistically a really fun and useful place to find yourself in history.

Nitpicking. While it may take a Yotta-Qecca-Queccasecond for the Universe to resemble the complete Heat Death the team envisions, the Universe will become very boring after just a few Petaseconds. By that time most all the stars that will ever be created have already been created After at most a few Zettaseconds the universe would be almost entirely composed of black holes, dead planets and dead stars Yes some of the dead planets MIGHT have life, but what are the odds?

If the question is how long-lasting will be the most INTERESTING aeons of the Universe to transpire, then I'm not sure we can count on more than a few trillion years.

 

[bilby]

The date the universe ends is astronomically (no pun intended) different than the date our planet (and thus life on Earth) ends. We only have a few billion years left before the sun starts its slow death spiral, and so are unaffected by the date the universe ends.

Planet, schmanet, Janet.

You've seen one damp silicate encrusted ball of iron, and you've seen 'em all.

This whole "We've got to save the planet", "The planet is going to die", "Earth is all we've got" shit is so parochial. It's like you guys have never lived anywhere else. Shit, I bet you've never even had a vacation anywhere else.

What a bunch of hicks.

 

[Swammerdami]

Planet, schmanet, Janet.

You've seen one damp silicate encrusted ball of iron, and you've seen 'em all.

This whole "We've got to save the planet", "The planet is going to die", "Earth is all we've got" shit is so parochial. It's like you guys have never lived anywhere else. Shit, I bet you've never even had a vacation anywhere else.

What a bunch of hicks.

Schrodinger deduced long before the understanding of DNA, that evolution required complex molecules like proteins. The RNA-protein genetic code works well, and if assumptions like Nick Lane's are accepted, a variation of this might be found in extraterrestrial life, if any. The fractal cavity structure of the chimneys sorrounding an acid-alkali interface on the ocean floor fits the needs for early life so well, that Dr. Lane speculates any exo-life might have developed in a similar way. Does this seem plausible?

A book by Gribbin suggests that conditions for advanced life might be relatively uncommon.

 

[thebeave]

we only have a few billion years left before the sun starts its slow death spiral, and so are unaffected by the date the universe ends.

Speak for yourself!
Y'all can sit around and burn as the sun expands, or more the hell out of the way of the growing inferno.
We have at least a few million years to pack our shit and get out of Dodge. No excuses!

And go where?

 

[Jarhyn]

So, one thing I find interesting about all these theories about the decay of our segment of the universe is that they universally proclaim the universe to be extremely young.

If all the time of our universe was considered as a year, we as humans would be a fraction of the last second, or something like that.

But if we compare our year to the full "year" of history that the universe will experience according to that math, we are in a fraction of the first attosecond of that grander year.

Statistically, it is likely we are among the first... Which is statistically a really fun and useful place to find yourself in history.

Nitpicking. While it may take a Yotta-Qecca-Queccasecond for the Universe to resemble the complete Heat Death the team envisions, the Universe will become very boring after just a few Petaseconds. By that time most all the stars that will ever be created have already been created After at most a few Zettaseconds the universe would be almost entirely composed of black holes, dead planets and dead stars Yes some of the dead planets MIGHT have life, but what are the odds?

If the question is how long-lasting will be the most INTERESTING aeons of the Universe to transpire, then I'm not sure we can count on more than a few trillion years.

Still, that puts us at the first thousandth of that span. The universe IS technically extremely young.

 

[Swammerdami]

I started this thread to report the ominous claim that "all the stars in the universe will go dark in one quinvigintillion years."

Today Google sent me to an even gloomier forecast. The Yahoo headline is "The Earth could be soon flung out of orbit or into the sun - all thanks to a passing star." It's to be expected that such disheartening news should be reported on multiple channels. Here's one link. (Googling the quoted headline gets lots of hits.)

Of course we all want to prepare for this imminent castastrophe: "SOON flung out of orbit or into the sun." Will this event be SOON enough to end the Trump Presidency before 2029? Should I accelerate my hedonistic life-style? It's poor planning to die with money still in the bank, but what if my money's all gone by 2028 and the Earth still hasn't been flung out of orbit or into the sun? I needed to study the numbers.

Whatever "science journalist" wrote the article needs to review junior-high math as the numbers are contradictory, but apparently the claim is that the Earth has a 0.2 percent probability of colliding or ejecting in the next 4 billion years. If my arithmetic is correct this averages out to an average of 0.000000005% chance per century, so my loved ones and I have more pressing problems. Whew! I complain about AI, but I'll guess even ChatGPT would have improved over this "science journalist" whose name I will politely conceal.

But I might have misunderstood. Pluto has a 5% chance of doom (over the same 4 billion years?) and Mercury's "odds ... are exponentially greater." I'll guess that Mr./Ms. J.M. threw in the "exponentially" to make us think they(*) did get a B+ in junior-high math. J.M. does suggest that astronomers have their eyes on a particular villainous star but he/she writes only one sentence about that.

* - Is it anti-woke and old-fashioned that I write "he/she" to keep J.M.'s gender hidden? A few minutes after learning about the catastrophe coming to the Earth "soon" I clicked on another article which, possibly because it was a fake story anyway, used "them/they" as the pronoun for the singular target of the report. This seemed OK except when the word was inflected to be "themselves." Am I anti-woke to prefer "themself" in contexts whee "them" is clearly singular?

 

[Elixir]

Pluto has a 5% chance of doom

What would constitute “doom” for Pluto?
AFAICS, what Pluto is now, is doom enough.

 

[bilby]

Pluto has a 5% chance of doom

What would constitute “doom” for Pluto?
AFAICS, what Pluto is now, is doom enough.

Yeah, Pluto was already stripped of his membership of the planet club by the IAU. It was only a mattter of time before he was thrown out of the Solar System completely, which is probably kinder to him than leaving him out in he cold, enviously looking in at the other planets having a good time without him.

I suspect that Neil deGrasse Tyson called security.

 

[Elixir]

It was only a mattter of time before he was thrown out of the Solar System completely

Seriously? Pluto’s orbit remains some 50+ AU this side of the heliopause. So perhaps he’s not totally in the game, but still in the stadium (solar system).
Neil Tyson can call whoever he wants, and won’t be any more effective than Mike Tyson.

 

[steve_bank]

It is like theists debating theology among theists.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

There goes all my plans.

 

[steve_bank]

Well, according to some interpretations of QM when this inverse ends it will repeat as reruns forever, like Star Trek.