The Heat Death - Is it survivable?

[Signo]

3 minutes ago, monophonic said:

I did not know this story. I do now. It's awesome!

So now you know how you could reverse entropy.

[Streetwind]

1 hour ago, Signo said:

This is Asimov's "Last Question". He found a way around in the novel (no spoilers here).

 

This was my first thought, too

For anyone unfamiliar and too lazy to google, here it is in comic form. Prepare for a lot of scrolling...

[KAL 9000]

4 hours ago, Signo said:

This is Asimov's "Last Question". He found a way around in the novel (no spoilers here).

 

Spoiler

LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!

 

[RainDreamer]

It is survivable. Just not in the same universe. 

[KAL 9000]

Who moderated my answer?

[Andem]

24 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Who moderated my answer?

O-o

[KAL 9000]

1 minute ago, Andem said:

O-o

I didn't put the ending in a spoiler.

[kerbiloid]

37 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Who moderated my answer?

 

4 hours ago, Signo said:

So now you know how you could reverse entropy.

Boltzmann brain did.

[Signo]

19 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

 

Boltzmann brain did.

Yes, I had the "feeling" entropy could be a sinusoidal wave but we do not have any proof. Gravity is particle or wave?

Edited September 13, 2016 by Signo

[Deddly]

As Jim Carrey said in a childishly humourus scene in Liar Lair, it might possibly have been one of the moderators who has posted in this thread . 

Feel free to PM me about it if you like, @KAL 9000

Now back on topic. Heat Death... Well yeah I think it's possible

[Matuchkin]

Millions of space stations, maybe? I think that is our only hope of surviving what essentially is a blank vacuum. By this time, we will probably be able to recycle most air, water, waste, etc (probably via filters). GMO food will absolutely have to be the only food eaten, unless we can keep breeding animals endlessly. Electricity will have to be created by muscle power, by electric rotors that power themselves via the generator they spin, or maybe by some kind of synthetic organic material.

[Bill Phil]

5 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

Millions of space stations, maybe? I think that is our only hope of surviving what essentially is a blank vacuum. By this time, we will probably be able to recycle most air, water, waste, etc (probably via filters). GMO food will absolutely have to be the only food eaten, unless we can keep breeding animals endlessly. Electricity will have to be created by muscle power, by electric rotors that power themselves via the generator they spin, or maybe by some kind of synthetic organic material.

Or, since this is so far into history, we could go into another universe, or maybe we wouldn't be anything like ourselves today.

[andrewas]

57 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

Millions of space stations, maybe? I think that is our only hope of surviving what essentially is a blank vacuum. By this time, we will probably be able to recycle most air, water, waste, etc (probably via filters). GMO food will absolutely have to be the only food eaten, unless we can keep breeding animals endlessly. Electricity will have to be created by muscle power, by electric rotors that power themselves via the generator they spin, or maybe by some kind of synthetic organic material.

To survive the heat death, you need to be a perpetual motion machine. The systems you describe have losses, eventually you will exhaust your energy supply and be unable to replenish it because the universe no longer contains energy gradients that can be used to do work. This point can be delayed, but even if proton decay isn't a thing and we always have atoms to work with, we can only eke out so much life, even using extreme measures like manipulating stellar formation so that small, efficient stars form only as we need them. 

[Matuchkin]

2 minutes ago, andrewas said:

To survive the heat death, you need to be a perpetual motion machine.

The way to think of this is that, to survive heat-death, humanity needs to be a perpetual motion machine that uses as much "momentum" as possible, meaning we need to rely on technology that will work by itself with minimal-to-none energy loss. We probably need to start working millions of years before heat-death becomes total, mostly focusing on creating atoms and making machines that could do so. It seems that, if we have atoms, we have the first inklings of hope.

[KAL 9000]

19 hours ago, Deddly said:

As Jim Carrey said in a childishly humourus scene in Liar Lair, it might possibly have been one of the moderators who has posted in this thread . 

Feel free to PM me about it if you like, @KAL 9000

Now back on topic. Heat Death... Well yeah I think it's possible

Nothing bad, the ending probably should be in a spoiler. Just wondering.

BTW, I'm actually writing a short story on this topic about beings that, when the heat death is closing in, figure out how to create a new universe and move, leaving the old one behind. However, creating a new universe will take almost all of the energy the old one has left, so it's a race against the clock to gather the energy in time.

[radonek]

On Saturday September 10, 2016 at 5:30 PM, Diche Bach said:

Honestly I'm a little sckeptikal that any projections of this nature are particularly valid, given that the greatest minds at the cutting edge of these sciences have to invoke deus ex machina like "dark matter" and "dark energy" to get their models to work with the actual observed behavior of the [apparent] universe.

Heat death of universe have little to do with those. It's just second law of thermodynamics pushed to its logical conclusion. AFAIK no modern cosmology can change that, although it may find a way to end  universe somewhat sooner.
 

[NFUN]

On Saturday, September 10, 2016 at 0:21 PM, Der Anfang said:

Define life.  (And yes, I am well aware there are debates over that.)

Thermodynamically, life is a sustained pocket of local low entropy, which obviously can't exist in a Universe of maximum entropy. Biologically, life needs metabolism to function, which obviously can't exist in a Universe of maximum entropy. A Universe of maximum entropy has no matter. It's a homogenous region of low-energy radiation with no gradients. Even before matter decays into nothingness there wouldn't be enough gradients for life to eke an existence out of.

 

14 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

The way to think of this is that, to survive heat-death, humanity needs to be a perpetual motion machine that uses as much "momentum" as possible, meaning we need to rely on technology that will work by itself with minimal-to-none energy loss. We probably need to start working millions of years before heat-death becomes total, mostly focusing on creating atoms and making machines that could do so. It seems that, if we have atoms, we have the first inklings of hope.

nope. Having perfectly efficient technology is impossible. Eventually the energy will run out, no matter how greased your machines are and how much you try to recycle waste heat. If you have a perpetual motion machine you can do whatever the hell you want with no problem.

Edited September 14, 2016 by NFUN

[Diche Bach]

1 hour ago, radonek said:

Heat death of universe have little to do with those. It's just second law of thermodynamics pushed to its logical conclusion. AFAIK no modern cosmology can change that, although it may find a way to end  universe somewhat sooner.
 

My point being: we do not comprehend the universe yet. The need to invoke dark matter and dark energy demonstrate that.

[NFUN]

Just now, Diche Bach said:

My point being: we do not comprehend the universe yet. The need to invoke dark matter and dark energy demonstrate that.

The two most solid physical laws we know of are the Laws of Thermodynamics and the Laws of Conservation. You're not getting more out than what you put in, and it's impossible to eliminate waste. Eventually, we'll run out of energy and life will go extinct. This will happen even disregarding the eventually decay of all matter into energy.

 

Luckily, thermodynamics is statistical and quantum mechanics is strange, so in an unimaginably long period of time things will spontaneously become more organized and perhaps a new Universe will be born. However, there's just about no way we last that long to move on to the next Universe.

[Diche Bach]

1 minute ago, NFUN said:

The two most solid physical laws we know of are the Laws of Thermodynamics and the Laws of Conservation. You're not getting more out than what you put in, and it's impossible to eliminate waste. Eventually, we'll run out of energy and life will go extinct. This will happen even disregarding the eventually decay of all matter into energy.

 

Luckily, thermodynamics is statistical and quantum mechanics is strange, so in an unimaginably long period of time things will spontaneously become more organized and perhaps a new Universe will be born. However, there's just about no way we last that long to move on to the next Universe.

"You're not getting more out than what you put in, and it's impossible to eliminate waste:" well . . . then why don't galaxies fly apart? And why is the universe continuing to expand, indeed accelerating in doing so. My feeble grasp of these matters suggests to me that the universe breaks the laws in very major ways and we do not yet comprehend what the loving poodle it is doing.

[NFUN]

2 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

"You're not getting more out than what you put in, and it's impossible to eliminate waste:" well . . . then why don't galaxies fly apart? And why is the universe continuing to expand, indeed accelerating in doing so. My feeble grasp of these matters suggests to me that the universe breaks the laws in very major ways and we do not yet comprehend what the loving poodle it is doing.

You're right. Dark Energy is weird. Understanding it could change everything we know significantly.

[Steel]

5 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

"You're not getting more out than what you put in, and it's impossible to eliminate waste:" well . . . then why don't galaxies fly apart? ...

Galaxies don't fly apart because of gravity, and i can assure you there is nothing non-physical about gravity...

 

Besides all of this, there's one fundamental problem with this thread: The question it asks is paradoxical.

If something one is present in the universe, then there is a non uniform distribution of entropy, as there must be for some form of life. Thus the act of there being something to observe the universe will mean the heat death does not occur until they stop existing.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Steel

[Diche Bach]

2 minutes ago, Steel said:

Galaxies don't fly apart because of gravity, and i can assure you there is nothing non-physical about gravity...

That is what was always assumed until they started tabulating how much mass they could see and realized there is not enough.

 

[Steel]

Just now, Diche Bach said:

That is what was always assumed until they started tabulating how much mass they could see and realized there is not enough.

 

It's still gravity, just some (read most) of the mass is not what we'd called "normal" matter.

[Diche Bach]

3 minutes ago, Steel said:

It's still gravity, just some (read most) of the mass is not what we'd called "normal" matter.

Check out the whole video before you decide