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Timeline of the far future

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Re: Timeline of the far future

#81

Post by Symmetry »

andbberger wrote: post #63
netgusto wrote: post #2

Fascinating: "10^(10^50) years: Estimated time for a Boltzmann brain to appear in the vacuum via a spontaneous entropy decrease." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain > [...] a Boltzmann brain is a self-aware entity that arises due to extremely rare random fluctuations out of a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. [...]

That is __severely__ underestimating the true probability - it considers only random thermal fluctuations. But the universe is really powered by processes that dissipate energy across a gradient to fuel a structured, very low entropy state. The math is the same as calculating the probability that the glass you just broke will spontaneously jump back onto the table and reassemble itself. Which is a standard introducto…

the universe is really powered by processes that dissipate energy across a gradient to fuel a structured, very low entropy state.

By 10^(10^50) years that'll be long over.

Re: Timeline of the far future

#82

Post by [deleted] »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #65
21 wrote: post #8

> The length of the day used for astronomical timekeeping reaches about 86,401 SI seconds. Under the present-day timekeeping system, either a leap second would need to be added to the clock every single day, or else by then, in order to compensate, the length of the day would have had to have been officially lengthened by one SI second. Can you just imagine the amount of legacy code with DAY_SECONDS=86400 out there 5…

That's the good way to write code, surely? Then you can just change it once to DAY_SECONDS=86401.

[deleted]

Re: Timeline of the far future

#84

Post by OscarCunningham »

nemothekid wrote: post #72
OscarCunningham wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the good way to write code, surely? Then you can just change it once to DAY_SECONDS=86401.

And they can also pray that their development environment still works on Linux 9.21

Maybe GNU Hurd will be on version 1 by then.

Re: Timeline of the far future

#85

Post by tibbon »

mikeash wrote: post #13
21 wrote: post #8

> The length of the day used for astronomical timekeeping reaches about 86,401 SI seconds. Under the present-day timekeeping system, either a leap second would need to be added to the clock every single day, or else by then, in order to compensate, the length of the day would have had to have been officially lengthened by one SI second. Can you just imagine the amount of legacy code with DAY_SECONDS=86400 out there 5…

It will be easier to boost the Earth’s spin back to a 86,400-second day than to fix all the code.

Someone should write a short story about this.

Re: Timeline of the far future

#86

Post by duckerude »

mockingbirdy wrote: post #60
duckerude wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you have a box with red marbles and blue marbles. You start shaking it. The marbles get mixed up. Pretty soon, they're completely mixed up. That's maximum entropy. Now imagine you keep shaking the box for a few years or so. Just by sheer coincidence, they might end up neatly sorted for a few seconds every now and then. That's like a Boltzmann brain. I think that's all there is to it in principle, but I'm not…

> you keep shaking the box for a few years or so That was the part I was unsure about: Does the universe keep on shaking? The answer seems to be: Due to quantum uncertainty - yes. Why? No one really knows because we don't have a god-damn clue about why the universe works the way it works (although we have a good understanding how the universe works in many points, but not a coherent theory or framework that gives a c…

Why wouldn't it keep on shaking? Energy doesn't go away. Things don't necessarily stop moving.

Again - the universe doesn't cool down to absolute zero. It's called "heat death" for a different reason.

You don't need anything quantum for this. Simple Newtonian mechanics seem enough.

Re: Timeline of the far future

#87

Post by vidanay »

rtkwe wrote: post #69
OscarCunningham wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the good way to write code, surely? Then you can just change it once to DAY_SECONDS=86401.

Fine but now you have to find every packaged binary using the old compiled version and update that too.

Quantum compilers will have that done by Tuesday afternoon.

Re: Timeline of the far future

#89

Post by christianbryant »

While I'm not totally on board with outlooks on a technological singularity a la Kurzweil and peers, what does it mean that there is no real representation of that idea here? For example, Kurzweil's "law of accelerating returns" where the speed of technological change increases exponentially has many flaws according to scientists I respect greatly, yet also has many hints at possible futures, ironically also according to scientists I respect greatly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Re: Timeline of the far future

#90

Post by turc1656 »

394549 wrote: post #56
turc1656 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. In Neil DeGrasse Tyson's version of "Cosmos" there is a great illustration where he says that if we visualize the entire history of the universe as being scaled to one calendar year then every human being that has ever lived has essentially existed somewhere within the last 12 seconds of that year.

> In Neil DeGrasse Tyson's version of "Cosmos" there is a great illustration where he says that if we visualize the entire history of the universe as being scaled to one calendar year then every human being that has ever lived has essentially existed somewhere within the last 12 seconds of that year. Was that in the original Carl Sagan version of Cosmos as well? I seem to recall it, but I've never seen the Neil DeGra…

Apparently it was. I have never seen the older version so wasn't aware. Another commenter above posted the youtube link to the original segment.
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