An end worse than Heat Death

[sophiaserpentia]

Because of entropy, supposedly the universe as we know it will die out as form becomes indistinct over time. Since even protons decay, even matter will eventually cease to exist, and there will be only a pool of hadrons.

But an even worse prospect has been imagined by cosmologists.

"In 1998, two competing teams of astronomers startled the scientific world with the news that the expansion of the universe seemed to be speeding up under the influence of a mysterious antigravity that seems embedded in space itself...

"'Dark energy,' the phenomenon was quickly named.

"If dark energy is real and the acceleration continues, the galaxies will eventually speed away from one another so quickly that they couldn't see one another. The universe would become cold and empty as the continued acceleration sucked away the energy needed for life and thought.

"It would be 'the worst possible universe,' for the quality and quantity of life, said Dr. Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University."

from In the Beginning...

Comments

[alobar.livejournal.com]

Of course we also have some indications that on the quantum levwel entropy can (at times) run backwards. Maybe life as we know it will simply migrate from the biological realm to the quantum realm.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think there are localized macro-scale exceptions too: for a long time I've thought of life as a "reproducible localized anentropic process" (in fact this would be my definition of life) so I am aware that entropy can have local exceptions. It is a global phenomenon, so there is breathing room.

I imagine black holes provide the localized exception to the global phenomenon of dark energy. But the thought of the universe expanding so fast it burns itself out, is even more depressing than heat death. IMO, anyway.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

I try not to worry about things I can't do anything about.
Chances are by that time I'll be dead anyway.