5 ms·

How to Survive the End of the Universe (2014)

26 points by firebaze 5y ago

alboaie 5y ago
"A cold, dark universe is billions, if not trillions, of years in the future. Between now and then, humans will face plenty of other calamities: wars and pestilences, ice ages, asteroid impacts, and the eventual consumption of Earth—in about 5 billion years—as our sun expands into a red giant star. To last until the very end of the universe, an advanced civilization will have to master interstellar travel, spreading far and wide throughout the galaxy and learning to cope with a slowing, cooling, darkening cosmos. Their greatest challenge will be figuring out how to not be here when the universe dies, essentially finding a way to undertake the ultimate journey of fleeing this universe for another. Such a plan may sound absurd. But there is nothing in physics that forbids such a venture. Einstein’s theory of general relativity allows for the existence of wormholes, sometimes called Einstein-Rosen bridges, that connect parallel universes. Among theoretical and experimental physicists, parallel universes are not science fiction. The notion of the multiverse—that our universe coexists with an infinite number of other universes—has gained ground among working scientists." From article... The infinite concept is probably a human made conncept so and anyway 1 million years is probably more than enough to change your "identity" a few hundreds time (at least). So this surving the end of the universe is a bit too much to consider even in the wildest fantasies ;)
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Relevant SF story: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?44207 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?44207
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    There was also this: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1044 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1044 It was assumed that the universe would eventually stop contracting and end up in a "big crunch". The plot is basically "bussard ramjet spacecraft gets its engines stuck and goes faster and faster until the universe ends and a new one expands". Ignoring for narrative purposes there not being anywhere "outside" of a contracting universe.
burlesona 5y ago
Title says 2014, but the article is actually 2004. An interesting read for sure. I'll admit though, I couldn't help think it unlikely that our present civilization will last the thousands of years necessary to reach the technology level he speaks of. HN readers know the myriad threads hanging over our heads so I won't try to list them all, but suffice it to say, I'm inclined to believe the great filter is still in front of us.
- kthxb 5y ago
  Wikipedia's "Timeline of the far Future" [0] gives a 95% chance for hunans to be extinct in 10k years. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
  - erredois 5y ago
    By one calculation, other person calculated 7.8 mil years for 95% of extinction mentioned on the same page.
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    That's not about civilization though.
yawaworht1978 5y ago
If there would really be wormholes, did Einstein or anyone else have an estimate on how we would perceive the time elapsed after passing through one? I understand the definition of a wormhole is the entrance is a black hole, the exit is a white hole, that's what I read once. Means one way journey. Maybe we will be able to generate black holes with a white hole to emit ourselves to another place, but that would still not mean we would escape the end of the universe. Unless I understood wrong and a wormhole is not a black and white hole construct, but leading to another universe.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  I dunno maybe someone , preferably Michael Nolan , should make a movie depicting such a concept.
  - yawaworht1978 5y ago
    Upon further research, I have found an academic source, the theory unlike my 2 scenarios, it's a mix, quote: "The complete Schwarzschild geometry consists of a black hole, a white hole, and two Universes connected at their horizons by a wormhole." https://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/bh/schww.html https://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/bh/schww.html
- codethief 5y ago
  > I understand the definition of a wormhole is the entrance is a black hole, the exit is a white hole, that's what I read once. Means one way journey. This is not the definition. The source of your confusion might be that the simplest solution to the Einstein field equations that contains a black hole (called Schwarzschild solution[0]), also contains a white hole and a separate, let's say, "universe" when considering its so-called maximally extended[1] solution. The two universes (region I and III in the diagram in [1]) are separated by the black hole and the white hole (region II and IV in the diagram in [1]) and there's only an "infinitesimally small" connection between them, called an Einstein-Rosen bridge[2], which is usually considered to be the simplest example of a (non-traversable) wormhole. People have speculated that on the "other side" of a black hole there's a white hole ejecting the matter swallowed by the black hole into another universe (which would kinda be a wormhole) but this is pure speculation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_metric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_metric [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%E2%80%93Szekeres_coordinates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%E2%80%93Szekeres_coord... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole#Einstein%E2%80%93Rosen_bridges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole#Einstein%E2%80%93Rose...
Torwald 5y ago
> This was the basis of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which may be the most scientifically accurate depiction of an encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence. This line got me thinking, is Stanislaw Lem's "Swarm" more scientifically accurate than the watchers in Space Odyssey?
the_third_wave 5y ago
Just make sure you make it to Milliways [1] in time and you'll survive it just fine. [1] https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Milliways https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Milliways
zw123456 5y ago
Wouldn't it be simpler to build a time machine and go back in time in the same universe to a nicer time ?
- aranchelk 5y ago
  Now we’re in danger of just listing plots of Christopher Nolan movies.
  - zw123456 5y ago
    I'm all in for fan fiction effort :)
- greatquux 5y ago
  Sort of like the plot of the OG Star Trek episode All Our Yesterdays. Going back in time to avoid your planet death: Now that’s nostalgia for real.
dobin 5y ago
When the stars go out, we can live as virtualized entities in a big computer built around a black hole for a few quadrillion years, by using the hawking radiation as energy source. We have like 200 billion years to collect as much matter in our local supercluster as possible. After the black holes evaporated, maybe can use proton decay. According to Isaac Arthur (on youtube. I highly recommend it).

26 points by firebaze 5y ago

"A cold, dark universe is billions, if not trillions, of years in the future. Between now and then, humans will face plenty of other calamities: wars and pestilences, ice ages, asteroid impacts, and the eventual consumption of Earth—in about 5 billion years—as our sun expands into a red giant star. To last until the very end of the universe, an advanced civilization will have to master interstellar travel, spreading far and wide throughout the galaxy and learning to cope with a slowing, cooling, darkening cosmos. Their greatest challenge will be figuring out how to not be here when the universe dies, essentially finding a way to undertake the ultimate journey of fleeing this universe for another. Such a plan may sound absurd. But there is nothing in physics that forbids such a venture. Einstein’s theory of general relativity allows for the existence of wormholes, sometimes called Einstein-Rosen bridges, that connect parallel universes. Among theoretical and experimental physicists, parallel universes are not science fiction. The notion of the multiverse—that our universe coexists with an infinite number of other universes—has gained ground among working scientists." From article... The infinite concept is probably a human made conncept so and anyway 1 million years is probably more than enough to change your "identity" a few hundreds time (at least). So this surving the end of the universe is a bit too much to consider even in the wildest fantasies ;)

pfdietz 5y ago
Relevant SF story: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?44207 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?44207
- perl4ever 5y ago
  There was also this: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1044 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1044 It was assumed that the universe would eventually stop contracting and end up in a "big crunch". The plot is basically "bussard ramjet spacecraft gets its engines stuck and goes faster and faster until the universe ends and a new one expands". Ignoring for narrative purposes there not being anywhere "outside" of a contracting universe.

burlesona 5y ago

Title says 2014, but the article is actually 2004. An interesting read for sure. I'll admit though, I couldn't help think it unlikely that our present civilization will last the thousands of years necessary to reach the technology level he speaks of. HN readers know the myriad threads hanging over our heads so I won't try to list them all, but suffice it to say, I'm inclined to believe the great filter is still in front of us.

kthxb 5y ago
Wikipedia's "Timeline of the far Future" [0] gives a 95% chance for hunans to be extinct in 10k years. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
- erredois 5y ago
  By one calculation, other person calculated 7.8 mil years for 95% of extinction mentioned on the same page.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  That's not about civilization though.

yawaworht1978 5y ago

If there would really be wormholes, did Einstein or anyone else have an estimate on how we would perceive the time elapsed after passing through one? I understand the definition of a wormhole is the entrance is a black hole, the exit is a white hole, that's what I read once. Means one way journey. Maybe we will be able to generate black holes with a white hole to emit ourselves to another place, but that would still not mean we would escape the end of the universe. Unless I understood wrong and a wormhole is not a black and white hole construct, but leading to another universe.

paulpauper 5y ago
I dunno maybe someone , preferably Michael Nolan , should make a movie depicting such a concept.
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Upon further research, I have found an academic source, the theory unlike my 2 scenarios, it's a mix, quote: "The complete Schwarzschild geometry consists of a black hole, a white hole, and two Universes connected at their horizons by a wormhole." https://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/bh/schww.html https://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/bh/schww.html
codethief 5y ago
> I understand the definition of a wormhole is the entrance is a black hole, the exit is a white hole, that's what I read once. Means one way journey. This is not the definition. The source of your confusion might be that the simplest solution to the Einstein field equations that contains a black hole (called Schwarzschild solution[0]), also contains a white hole and a separate, let's say, "universe" when considering its so-called maximally extended[1] solution. The two universes (region I and III in the diagram in [1]) are separated by the black hole and the white hole (region II and IV in the diagram in [1]) and there's only an "infinitesimally small" connection between them, called an Einstein-Rosen bridge[2], which is usually considered to be the simplest example of a (non-traversable) wormhole. People have speculated that on the "other side" of a black hole there's a white hole ejecting the matter swallowed by the black hole into another universe (which would kinda be a wormhole) but this is pure speculation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_metric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_metric [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%E2%80%93Szekeres_coordinates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%E2%80%93Szekeres_coord... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole#Einstein%E2%80%93Rosen_bridges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole#Einstein%E2%80%93Rose...

Torwald 5y ago

> This was the basis of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which may be the most scientifically accurate depiction of an encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence. This line got me thinking, is Stanislaw Lem's "Swarm" more scientifically accurate than the watchers in Space Odyssey?

the_third_wave 5y ago

Just make sure you make it to Milliways [1] in time and you'll survive it just fine. [1] https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Milliways https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Milliways

zw123456 5y ago

Wouldn't it be simpler to build a time machine and go back in time in the same universe to a nicer time ?

aranchelk 5y ago
Now we’re in danger of just listing plots of Christopher Nolan movies.
- zw123456 5y ago
  I'm all in for fan fiction effort :)
greatquux 5y ago
Sort of like the plot of the OG Star Trek episode All Our Yesterdays. Going back in time to avoid your planet death: Now that’s nostalgia for real.

dobin 5y ago

When the stars go out, we can live as virtualized entities in a big computer built around a black hole for a few quadrillion years, by using the hawking radiation as energy source. We have like 200 billion years to collect as much matter in our local supercluster as possible. After the black holes evaporated, maybe can use proton decay. According to Isaac Arthur (on youtube. I highly recommend it).