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Timeline of the far future
161–170 of 272 posts
Re: Timeline of the far future
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fun fact: most Boltzmann brains pass out in a matter of seconds, then die, and there's nothing they can do about that.
Maybe some Boltzmann brains start out with rich fulfilling memories. And then a later (or earlier) Boltzmann brain happens to exist with a continuation of those memories. (Now I realize I'm just reciting a plot point from the excellent book Permutation City ...)
You, Sir, have excellent taste.
Permutation City is the only recent hard science fiction books that I can fully embrace. It has novel and genuinely new thinking, it is realistic, and it's thoroughly entertaining.
Most modern sci-fi fails at one or more of those tasks. Indeed, most modern sci-fi fail's at not being mere fiction.
Re: Timeline of the far future
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
But how do we know which base number system they're using!?
Mathematically that's irrelevant to finding planets with an integer ratio of days per year. Integers are still integers no matter what base you express them in.
What if the base isn't an integer?
Base e for life.
Re: Timeline of the far future
#164The further I read, the smaller I feel.
The Total Perspective Vortex is allegedly the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected. When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it there's a tiny little speck, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker%2.…
It's pretty great if you're Zaphod Beeblebrox, though, since then it just confirms that the entire universe centers on you.
Re: Timeline of the far future
#165And then there's this: http://www.exitmundi.nl/ ;-)
Re: Timeline of the far future
#166Now I feel like a moron for going to speak about housing issues at the city council meeting...
Re: Timeline of the far future
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> processes that dissipate energy across a gradient to fuel a structured, very low entropy state You mean like... life?
That's one of 'em, yeah.
Re: Timeline of the far future
#168This reminded me of a question I've had knocking around in my head since I've heard of hawking radiation- the prediction is that the black holes slowly evaporate into subatomic particles. However, it seems to me at some point a critical juncture would be passed and the black hole would cease being bound gravitationally and the matter would be released similarly to a supernova or just spontaneously form a neutron star…
The intensity of Hawking radiation is inversely proportional to the size of the black hole. It shrinks as it radiates and its output increases. Once the black hole is tiny, the level of radiation is intense enough that you could call it an explosion. This is why small black holes are excellent generators. You just dump some mass into them and they convert it rather quickly to radiation.
Re: Timeline of the far future
#169> Current data suggest that the universe has a flat geometry (or very close to flat), and thus, will not collapse in on itself after a finite time, and the infinite future allows for the occurrence of a number of massively improbable events, such as the formation of Boltzmann brains. I always thought that the universe will just reach zero Kelvin and the party is over. That it will just continue to do improbable stuff…
The thing that confuses me is, if the universe were to reach any type of steady state over infinite time, my question would be, what caused it to be in any other state than steady to begin with? Almost feel like this is a causality question.
Well, one of the last timeline events is "Around this vast timeframe, quantum tunnelling in any isolated patch of the vacuum could generate, via inflation, new Big Bangs giving birth to new universes.[108]"
Thus, the cycle of new big bangs continue on forever.
Granted, the timeline for that is 10^{10^{10^{56}}} which is beyond comprehension soooo.
Re: Timeline of the far future
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
1
This feels anecdotal rather than an actual calculation.
I am hardly a mathematician, so I'm probably missing something, but I think it makes sense?
I believe it's well-established that elementary particles can spontaneously generate through quantum fluctuation. Assuming that this process is uniformly distributed, the probability per unit time of any given structure self-generating is nonzero (if fantastically small). Over a long enough timescale, the probability of any possible event occurring approaches one. If time is infinite, the probability is one.
What am I missing?