As I returned home from some shopping I heard the last minutes of RadioLab on public radio. The scientist was explaining how the sun would become a red giant, then a white dwarf, and how the universe would expand until even atoms and their components would break down so the entire universe would end. Of course, that’s not quite true. The problem is that scientists are used to dealing with huge numbers and even talking about infinity in the same breath, but infinity is a bit different. After this “end” it would mean that universe would be nothing but string soup. That’s assuming that string theory is correct.
What’s the probability in any minute that all of these strings would get together, form a big bang and start a new universe? The answer is likely to be something like one in ten to the minus google or even to the minus google to the google. In other words really, really, really unlikely. However, to calculate the probability of it ever happening we have to multiply that by the number of minutes, which would be infinite.
And, any probability other than zero, when multiplied by infinity, is one. So we should be optimistic and know everything will start all over again. (Hmmmm. Maybe that’s a reason to be pessimistic. )
As I returned home from some shopping I heard the last minutes of RadioLab on public radio. The scientist was explaining how the sun would become a red giant, then a white dwarf, and how the universe would expand until even atoms and their components would break down so the entire universe would end. Of course, that’s not quite true. The problem is that scientists are used to dealing with huge numbers and even talking about infinity in the same breath, but infinity is a bit different. After this “end” it would mean that universe would be nothing but string soup. That’s assuming that string theory is correct.
What’s the probability in any minute that all of these strings would get together, form a big bang and start a new universe? The answer is likely to be something like one in ten to the minus google or even to the minus google to the google. In other words really, really, really unlikely. However, to calculate the probability of it ever happening we have to multiply that by the number of minutes, which would be infinite.
And, any probability other than zero, when multiplied by infinity, is one. So we should be optimistic and know everything will start all over again. (Hmmmm. Maybe that’s a reason to be pessimistic. )
Occam
Not to worry my friend. All of us and the rest of humanity will be long gone before our solar system ends much less the universe.
Not to worry my friend. All of us and the rest of humanity will be long gone before our solar system ends much less the universe.
That’s a relief. I feel better now.
But will the cosmic soup have retained the memory of the previous universe? They say that no information gets lost. Perhaps the biblical creation is right after all. All a good scientist would need to do is reassemble the universe based on previous information and recompressing it into a singularity. The inherent potential contained in the “information” of the history and evolution of the universe would surely create a dynamic zero point singularity, which would explode in a BB and it would start all over again, exactly as before. A smart scientist could do this in say, 6 days?
Personally I look forward to being born again, and that time I will believe in the Great Scientist. After all He would have demonstrated the truth by recreating the original conditions of the first event….
Good point W4U, but if the universe began again exactly as before that means it would begin again as a quantum singularity, which means nothing would be predetermined but would rather be a matter of probabilities, which means something else would emerge out of the primordial soup or whatever may or may not have existed before the Big Bang.* The odds of our universe replicating out of another Big Bang are approximately 4.2x10^42**. But eternity is a long time, and because we know our universe exists, there is (obviously) a 100 percent chance of our universe existing, and given enough time (i.e. eternity) anything that can possibly happen will happen, such as our universe being exactly replicated in another Big Bang 4.2x10^420 years from now; but if this universe is replicated exactly we will never know because in this universe we have no way of accessing information from before the Big Bang.*** It’s sort of like the movie Groundhog Day, but on a much longer time scale.
There is a theory which states that if anyone ever discovers where the universe came from and why it was created it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states this has already happened. Douglas Adams
*That is the longest sentence I have ever written.
**I made that up. Actual odds may vary.
***That is the longest sentence I have ever written, relegating the previous longest sentence above to spot No 2.
Not to worry my friend. All of us and the rest of humanity will be long gone before our solar system ends much less the universe.
You dont think that we will make it at least to another habitable planet?
Would be sad that even some cockroaches would exist longer then mankind, i hoped that our brain would help us survive not kill us off much faster.
Would be sad that even some cockroaches would exist longer then mankind, i hoped that our brain would help us survive not kill us off much faster.
Dinosaurs reigned on Earth for 200 million years. Homo Sapiens Sapiens has been around for two million years and dominant only for the past 10,000 or so. There is no evidence big brains are a better survival adaptation than big teeth or the ability to scurry about in the dark and eat dead stuff.
Right, and we have no idea how many times this whole cycle may have happened in the past. By the time the sun becomes a red giant, life on earth will probably have gone through a few hundred different new dominant species. As far as information not being lost, I’ve always thought that was a nice but unjustified statement.
So if we and our universe pre-existed, would that prove reincarnation, as matter can’t be destroyed only rearranged? Could we be rearranged into yet another form in the next universe? I want to return as an independently wealthy world traveler, and own a sailboat, a large one.
Right, and we have no idea how many times this whole cycle may have happened in the past. By the time the sun becomes a red giant, life on earth will probably have gone through a few hundred different new dominant species. As far as information not being lost, I’ve always thought that was a nice but unjustified statement.
Occam
I saw an experiment which supposedly proved the retention of information.
They had a beaker with viscous material and a small propeller at bottom. They placed a drop of white liquid somewhere and began to rotate the viscous material slowly. As it turned the drop began to stretch until it became a line and on until the line was so thin it was no longer visible.
Then they reversed the process and lo, after a while the line reappeared, got thicker and finally ended up as the original drop in the exact starting point. It was remarkable in itself, but I always wondered what would happen when a slight disturbance was introduced as seems to happen frequently in the universe. A galactic collision, a supernova. Seems that any previous information would be destroyed in such events or at least scrambled to the point of no recovery.
OK, they were using a dilatent liquid which is sort of like a fluid rubber band. If you put an ink dot on a wide rubber band and stretch it out, the dot will elongate. Then, when you let it go, it’ll go back to the original dot. Similarly, consider the old style watch that had a wind up spring. Each time you wound it up, it would slowly go back to it’s original configuration. AHA!! information was never lost. Sorry, but their experiment was, as is so typical, by make-believe scientists who are far more interested in getting publicity than in carefully thinking through what they are doing.
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