Soldato
I just watched Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe and had my mind blown by the profound stuff he had to say. And my jaw dropped at the unbelievable numbers he reeled off. I've written verbatim the most interesting bits, which are a good read.
"The matter in black dwarves, the last matter in the universe, will eventually evaporate away and be carried off into the void as radiation, leaving absolutely nothing behind. With the black dwarves gone, there won't be a single atom of matter left. All that will remain of our once rich cosmos will be particles of light and black holes.
After an unimaginable length of time, even the black holes will have evaporated and the universe will be nothing but a sea of photons, gradually tending towards the same temperature as the expansion of the universe cools them towards absolute zero.
And when I say 'unimaginable period of time' I really mean it. It's 10,000 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years. How big's that number? Well if I were to start counting with a single atom representing one year, then there wouldn't be enough atoms in the entire universe to get anywhere near that number.
Once the very last remnants of the very last stars have finally decayed away to nothing, and everything reaches the same temperature, the universe finally comes to an end. The universe will become permanent and unchanging. Nothing happens and it keeps not happening. Forever.
It's what's known as the heat death of the universe. An era when the cosmos will remain vast and cold and desolate for the rest of time. The arrow of time ceases to exist. It's an inescapable fact of the universe and fundamental laws of physics, that the entire cosmos will die. Every single one of the 200 billion stars on our galaxy will go out.
And just as the death of the sun means the end of life on our planet, so the death of every star will extinguish any possibility of life in the universe.
As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe, life as we know it is only possible for one thousandth of a billion billion billionth billion billion billionth billion billion billionth of a per cent."
It's of course a very very long way off, but it seems incomprehensible to think the universe, and life, will eventually die completely and for eternity, never to return. Does anyone here think life will never be sparked again after the demise of the cosmos?
"The matter in black dwarves, the last matter in the universe, will eventually evaporate away and be carried off into the void as radiation, leaving absolutely nothing behind. With the black dwarves gone, there won't be a single atom of matter left. All that will remain of our once rich cosmos will be particles of light and black holes.
After an unimaginable length of time, even the black holes will have evaporated and the universe will be nothing but a sea of photons, gradually tending towards the same temperature as the expansion of the universe cools them towards absolute zero.
And when I say 'unimaginable period of time' I really mean it. It's 10,000 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years. How big's that number? Well if I were to start counting with a single atom representing one year, then there wouldn't be enough atoms in the entire universe to get anywhere near that number.
Once the very last remnants of the very last stars have finally decayed away to nothing, and everything reaches the same temperature, the universe finally comes to an end. The universe will become permanent and unchanging. Nothing happens and it keeps not happening. Forever.
It's what's known as the heat death of the universe. An era when the cosmos will remain vast and cold and desolate for the rest of time. The arrow of time ceases to exist. It's an inescapable fact of the universe and fundamental laws of physics, that the entire cosmos will die. Every single one of the 200 billion stars on our galaxy will go out.
And just as the death of the sun means the end of life on our planet, so the death of every star will extinguish any possibility of life in the universe.
As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe, life as we know it is only possible for one thousandth of a billion billion billionth billion billion billionth billion billion billionth of a per cent."
It's of course a very very long way off, but it seems incomprehensible to think the universe, and life, will eventually die completely and for eternity, never to return. Does anyone here think life will never be sparked again after the demise of the cosmos?
