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The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

nautil.us

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Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#161

Post by [deleted] »

ansible wrote: post #78
stackbutterflow wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a video on that. The end of the universe: https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA This is so weird to think that for most of its life the universe will be empty and cold. Like what's even the point of all this, of life, of us, if in the end nothing matters, everything decays into nothingness.

Thinking about this stuff is what prompted my thinking about things like suicide. The Universe is so vast. So much space, most of it with only the barest wisp of gas. Most of the solar systems we see in the night sky may not have life (we don't know yet). And yet here we are, a rare event in a vast Universe. In the end it doesn't matter what you do. What you accomplish or did not accomplish. What awards were won or l…

[deleted]

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#162

Post by SamBam »

platz wrote: post #25
SamBam wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but scientists have fairly good reasons for assuming that the rest of the universe looks pretty much the same. They could be wrong, of course, but "could be wrong" is always an assumption with these kinds of things anyway.

what is 'pretty much the same', and what are the 'fairly good reasons'?

Well, the current understanding is

1. The universe was created by the big bang, which created all the energy and matter in an instant. In the first few moments, this soup of energy and matter was near-uniform, but tiny imbalances caused matter to start clumping up into larger clumps.

2. Fast-forward 14 billion years, and those tiny imbalances and the resulting forces appear to have distributed the matter (including dark matter) into a fairly even, consistent structure across the entire universe, with galaxies mostly collecting together in clumps separated by huge filaments (see e.g. [1]). Our own galaxy seems to be in a bit of a void between some of these clumps.

So that's our understanding of how the universe came to be, and how it came to be the way it is now. It seems that things are, as I said, "pretty much the same" no matter how far out you go, and this has an explanatory reason: the near-uniformity of the matter and energy created by the big bang.

You're saying that it could be that, somewhere, outside the reaches of our telescopes, things are totally different. But we have no theories of how that could possibly have come to be, given our assumption #1 above. It just doesn't seem plausible, given our understanding of the big bang, that somewhere on the "other side" of the universe there's, say, nothing at all. Or a pure carbon crystal the size of our own observable universe. Or a Library of Babel.

You're free to say "well, scientists don't know that there isn't," yes, of course, but without some kind of explanatory hypothesis, it makes far more sense to go with the data and theories we have.

1. https://www.space.com/37191-we-live-in-a-cosmic-void.html

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#163

Post by dvaun »

figassis wrote: post #160
allendoerfer wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps to think of time as a dimension. Sure, you, anyone or anything will not last measured on this dimension. But it still has a span. You would not call objects meaningless or less beautiful just because they physically end at some point in space. Why is time so different? It is just the fourth dimension of their shape, giving them a more unique character.

The way I think of the universe is: we are the universe discovering itself, gaining consciousness and trying to figure itself out. Our fears are exactly the same as the universe’s. Our curiosity and wonder, also the universe’s. RN, this universe is a child, maybe a baby, and the way it’s expanding, it’s processes and consciousness will simply be on a much different time/space scale, require less energy (cold dark uni…

Interesting—this is the first time I've came across someone with my own viewpoint.

I'm not certain if there's a name for it. I figure it's a form of pantheism.

For me, certainly, it's the only thing which makes sense.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#164

Post by [deleted] »

allendoerfer wrote: post #104
ansible wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about this stuff is what prompted my thinking about things like suicide. The Universe is so vast. So much space, most of it with only the barest wisp of gas. Most of the solar systems we see in the night sky may not have life (we don't know yet). And yet here we are, a rare event in a vast Universe. In the end it doesn't matter what you do. What you accomplish or did not accomplish. What awards were won or l…

It helps to think of time as a dimension. Sure, you, anyone or anything will not last measured on this dimension. But it still has a span. You would not call objects meaningless or less beautiful just because they physically end at some point in space. Why is time so different? It is just the fourth dimension of their shape, giving them a more unique character.

[deleted]

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#165

Post by 0000011111 »

allendoerfer wrote: post #104
ansible wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about this stuff is what prompted my thinking about things like suicide. The Universe is so vast. So much space, most of it with only the barest wisp of gas. Most of the solar systems we see in the night sky may not have life (we don't know yet). And yet here we are, a rare event in a vast Universe. In the end it doesn't matter what you do. What you accomplish or did not accomplish. What awards were won or l…

It helps to think of time as a dimension. Sure, you, anyone or anything will not last measured on this dimension. But it still has a span. You would not call objects meaningless or less beautiful just because they physically end at some point in space. Why is time so different? It is just the fourth dimension of their shape, giving them a more unique character.

Psychedelics can help with this.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#166

Post by mattmaroon »

dvaun wrote: post #163
figassis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I think of the universe is: we are the universe discovering itself, gaining consciousness and trying to figure itself out. Our fears are exactly the same as the universe’s. Our curiosity and wonder, also the universe’s. RN, this universe is a child, maybe a baby, and the way it’s expanding, it’s processes and consciousness will simply be on a much different time/space scale, require less energy (cold dark uni…

Interesting—this is the first time I've came across someone with my own viewpoint. I'm not certain if there's a name for it. I figure it's a form of pantheism. For me, certainly, it's the only thing which makes sense.

It’s actually something about a billion people believe. They’re called Buddhists.

You might like the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, which I probably misspelled.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#167

Post by macrolocal »

kibwen wrote: post #115
ansible wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about this stuff is what prompted my thinking about things like suicide. The Universe is so vast. So much space, most of it with only the barest wisp of gas. Most of the solar systems we see in the night sky may not have life (we don't know yet). And yet here we are, a rare event in a vast Universe. In the end it doesn't matter what you do. What you accomplish or did not accomplish. What awards were won or l…

Similar experience here. Learning about astronomy was a psychologically traumatizing experience. After a few years of ceaseless low-key existential crises I think I finally ended up better off, with a healthy perspective of my place in the universe and an appreciation for what a miracle it is that we have the chance to observe anything at all. The writings of Carl Sagan helped greatly. But I fear I could have just as…

Well, you might be leaning way too much into your moral intuitions about space and extent in this context. Small things are not unimportant.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#168

Post by salt-thrower »

misthop wrote: post #12

Wikipedia has a page on the Timeline of the far future[1]. It lists a ton of physical and cosmological things that are predicted to happen based on our current understanding of physics. A really fun read that always takes me down a rabbit's hole of phenomena wikipedia pages. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

Super interesting read. Thanks for that. It puts me in a bit of a zen-like state to remember that everything will be dust in the end no matter what we do now.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#169

Post by platz »

SamBam wrote: post #162
platz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is 'pretty much the same', and what are the 'fairly good reasons'?

Well, the current understanding is 1. The universe was created by the big bang, which created all the energy and matter in an instant. In the first few moments, this soup of energy and matter was near-uniform, but tiny imbalances caused matter to start clumping up into larger clumps. 2. Fast-forward 14 billion years, and those tiny imbalances and the resulting forces appear to have distributed the matter (including d…

> this soup of energy and matter was near-uniform

We can only infer this in the region that we can see in the CMB, which is a small region when re-wound back to the instant after the BB.

What you are suggesting is that this uniformity was infinite in all directions, which is not what we're able to infer given the data we have so far.

Are you even familiar with the idea of the multiverse or bubble nucleation.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#170

Post by dvaun »

mattmaroon wrote: post #166
dvaun wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting—this is the first time I've came across someone with my own viewpoint. I'm not certain if there's a name for it. I figure it's a form of pantheism. For me, certainly, it's the only thing which makes sense.

It’s actually something about a billion people believe. They’re called Buddhists. You might like the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, which I probably misspelled.

TIL. I'm not knowledgeable about Buddhism at all, so I'll look into this. Thanks!
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