3 ms·
gamma ray burst is a fun one (though unlikely thankfully!) -- a similar one that gets me excited is "false vacuum collapse" whereby the "energy" of the fabric o
by fasa99 3y ago
gamma ray burst is a fun one (though unlikely thankfully!) -- a similar one that gets me excited is "false vacuum collapse" whereby the "energy" of the fabric of space itself is at a local but not global minimum. So in some unspecified conditions it drops to a lower/lowest minima and a destructive wavefront expands through the universe at the speed of light. Since the universe is so large, maybe one is already expanding right now, you'd never know (since speed of light). The upside is you'd never know it happened since death would take nanoseconds. Last I read about it, we don't know whether it's a local minima "false vacuum" versus global minimum.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoI saw something about that one recently, maybe it was on Spacetime. At first it bothered me, but then I sort of made my peace with it since like you said, it's physically impossible to see it coming and we'd all die instantly. It's almost like the civilisation equivalent of going in your sleep. I could drop dead from an aneurysm 5 minutes from now. No point worrying about it though. There's sort of a morbid comfort in that.
- cthalupa 3y agoThe good news is that since the universe on the whole is expanding faster than the speed of light due to dark energy, as long as it happens far enough away the universe will be expanding too quickly for it to ever reach us.