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New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

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Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#41

Post by grues-dinner »

thechao wrote: post #27
PaulHoule wrote: post #21

Practically stars are mostly burned out in another 50 billion years and radioisotopes that produce a heat gradient will also be mostly decayed by then. Eventually good tidal energy situations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_heating_of_Io will end as well since this kind of situation changes the orbits. So energy for life and usable thermal gradients will disappear even if entropy will continue to increase fo…

I've had plans for a sci-fi book I plan to never write that takes place in the ultra far future. The chapters' numbers would be the time dilation scale in a base 10 logarithm. The book would be made up of a series of short stories told from the point of view of a "time coast guard" rescuing idiots who refuse to time dilate from their creaking space hulks. A later (set?) of chapters might just be in the 90+ scale; at…

> Charlie Stross would write this book for me, and it'd be a series.

Sounds like Stephen Baxter's cup of tea. Hell, the detective could even be Reid Malenfant himself (maybe a cameo for Sheena 5 in a later book in the series?)

Then again, if there was an ultradeep-time Saturn's Children book, I'll place the preorder so fast it'll be blueshifted.

Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#42

Post by echelon »

PaulHoule wrote: post #21

Practically stars are mostly burned out in another 50 billion years and radioisotopes that produce a heat gradient will also be mostly decayed by then. Eventually good tidal energy situations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_heating_of_Io will end as well since this kind of situation changes the orbits. So energy for life and usable thermal gradients will disappear even if entropy will continue to increase fo…

Due to the expansion of the universe, we're also going to lose access to the rest of the universe in that time.

  Time - Galaxies lost to us forever 
  1 million years ~ 0.02%
  10 million years ~ 0.2%
  100 million years ~ 2%
  1 billion years ~ 20%
  10 billion years ~ 80%
  150 billion years ~ 99.9999997%
So we'll have to find somewhere to hunker down for the last forty billion years or so as we wait for all energy to dissipate.

That's all assuming we can't "break physics" and nucleate something new, find a tear in our current manifold, etc. Our peon brains are too small to reason about this and any claims that we're stuck are insufficiently computed.

Given our limited sensing capabilities and tiny time sample, I'm skeptical of our current understanding. Claims of current model predictions feel premature.

Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#43

Post by oneshtein »

zdc1 wrote: post #3
delichon wrote: post #2

As such, the second law appears to hold a chilling prophecy for humanity in the very long term. The idea that our species is so uniquely capable of transcending extinction and surviving long enough for the fate of the universe to be relevant to it is optimistic to the point of absurdity. It fits the evidence better to suppose that we're particularly capable of self destruction.

Even if we don't self-destruct, we will likely have evolved into something else completely different by then. Or maybe a million years from now they will keep some humans (based on present-day DNA) in a museum exhibit somewhere. Or maybe that's us.

Some will evolve, some will stay. We are evolved from 1 billion year old bacteria, which still there, on Earth.

Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#45

Post by PaulHoule »

le-mark wrote: post #36
thechao wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had plans for a sci-fi book I plan to never write that takes place in the ultra far future. The chapters' numbers would be the time dilation scale in a base 10 logarithm. The book would be made up of a series of short stories told from the point of view of a "time coast guard" rescuing idiots who refuse to time dilate from their creaking space hulks. A later (set?) of chapters might just be in the 90+ scale; at…

For anyone interested, Vernor Vinge does something like this but minus the massive scale, in Marooned in Realtime. Set 50 million years in the future. My all time favorite sci-fi fwiw.

In my mind his work was the best of the 1980s and that's a decade that produced some pretty powerful stuff like Ender's Game and Forge of God. Vinge coined the term "The Singularity" which is now almost a given to be a future event in some circles. His then wife also wrote some pretty good sci-fi such as The Outcasts of Heaven Belt I liked Vernor's A Fire Upon the Deep a lot but not his later books.

Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#46

Post by PaulHoule »

thechao wrote: post #27
PaulHoule wrote: post #21

Practically stars are mostly burned out in another 50 billion years and radioisotopes that produce a heat gradient will also be mostly decayed by then. Eventually good tidal energy situations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_heating_of_Io will end as well since this kind of situation changes the orbits. So energy for life and usable thermal gradients will disappear even if entropy will continue to increase fo…

I've had plans for a sci-fi book I plan to never write that takes place in the ultra far future. The chapters' numbers would be the time dilation scale in a base 10 logarithm. The book would be made up of a series of short stories told from the point of view of a "time coast guard" rescuing idiots who refuse to time dilate from their creaking space hulks. A later (set?) of chapters might just be in the 90+ scale; at…

If it could be the Charlie Stross who wrote Accelerando and the Iron Sunrise than yeah but I feel like he went downhill after that.

Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#47

Post by kgwgk »

gus_massa wrote: post #32

> Boltzmann’s model also ignored the influence of gravity, which is often described as an anti-entropic force due to its clumping effects on matter. I never heard something like that. Gravity follows the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

>> gravity, which is often described as an anti-entropic force

I don’t know about that but it’s also sometimes described as an entropic force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity

Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#48

Post by brfox »

thechao wrote: post #27
PaulHoule wrote: post #21

Practically stars are mostly burned out in another 50 billion years and radioisotopes that produce a heat gradient will also be mostly decayed by then. Eventually good tidal energy situations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_heating_of_Io will end as well since this kind of situation changes the orbits. So energy for life and usable thermal gradients will disappear even if entropy will continue to increase fo…

I've had plans for a sci-fi book I plan to never write that takes place in the ultra far future. The chapters' numbers would be the time dilation scale in a base 10 logarithm. The book would be made up of a series of short stories told from the point of view of a "time coast guard" rescuing idiots who refuse to time dilate from their creaking space hulks. A later (set?) of chapters might just be in the 90+ scale; at…

Your comment reminded me of this Asimov short story:

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

Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#49

Post by daft_pink »

andrewflnr wrote: post #12
daft_pink wrote: post #7

If the laws of thermodynamics don’t apply does that mean we can build our perpetual motion machine?

Just as soon as you figure out what dark energy is and how to extract work from it. Easy, right?

So you’re saying there’s a chance

Re: New interpretations suggest the "heat death" hypothesis might not hold (2023)

#50

Post by thechao »

PaulHoule wrote: post #46
thechao wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had plans for a sci-fi book I plan to never write that takes place in the ultra far future. The chapters' numbers would be the time dilation scale in a base 10 logarithm. The book would be made up of a series of short stories told from the point of view of a "time coast guard" rescuing idiots who refuse to time dilate from their creaking space hulks. A later (set?) of chapters might just be in the 90+ scale; at…

If it could be the Charlie Stross who wrote Accelerando and the Iron Sunrise than yeah but I feel like he went downhill after that.

He's changed the focus of his stories, for sure; I get that it's not everyone's cup-of-tea. But, his prose & storytelling is still just as strong. (I agree, though.)
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