The Universe is Dying

[Nakosis]

"For about two decades, scientists have suspected that our universe was fading, but didn’t have the full picture. According to the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) project and the largest multi-wavelength survey ever conducted, scientists discovered that older stars are fading out faster than new stars are being formed."

http://www.electronicproducts.com/A...cludes_that_the_universe_is_slowly_dying.aspx

So when the last spark in the universe dies out, is that it? Or is there a chance for life after the death of the universe?

I've always assume this universe is just a minute part of a larger process.

 

[Revoltingest]

We've thought it's dying longer than that.
I recall from the days of yore, when I was a bright & smiling engineering student,
that my thermodynamics textbook had a bizarre one page chapter about entropy.
The authors decided that the implications of increasing entropy in a closed system
(the universe) meant that the universe would die from heat death. This was utterly
unacceptable, so they posited that there must be a supreme being to re-start it.

 

[George-ananda]

So when the last spark in the universe dies out, is that it? Or is there a chance for life after the death of the universe?

Let me throw out there a theory of mine on this subject from my Advaita perspective.

Brahman Alone is Real. The universe is all the play of Brahman; He separates Himself from Himself in Act I; and returns Himself to Himself in Act II. In this play the entire multi-planes of this universe are really just props in the play. It is just the creative aspect of Brahman.

Now you ask about 'life' after the death of the universe. I believe there never was life in the physical to begin. It was all just Brahman incarnating in finite forms to play roles in the play. At the end of the play we (Brahman in finite forms; role players) will realize we were just role playing and will rest as the One Brahman in pure being-bliss-awareness. Then, another play?

 

[Quintessence]

It doesn't seem to me that the article suggests the universe is "dying." Unless I'm mistaken, it is still the case that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. That the matter and energy ceases to coalesce into stars and is spread out as something else doesn't mean the universe is "dead."

 

[Shadow Wolf]

We can't even decide if Pluto is a planet or not, so it seems rather baseless to say the universe is dying. It will of course cease to exist, at least as we know it, some day, but we've seen so very little and we know even less.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I've always assume this universe is just a minute part of a larger process.

That is my position. The tiniest of things we know of build a larger part, and that larger part builds a larger part. How far does it really go before we reach "the end," and there is nothing bigger? How far does it really go before we reach "the beginning," and there is nothing smaller? If the multiverse theories are true, then it would make sense that each "universe" is a smaller part of something larger.

 

[Nietzsche]

I hate to break this to you(pftahahaha, no I don't) but entropy wins. By default. It's the Unstoppable Force.

 

[dust1n]

Well, I mean, technically we are far, far closer the beginning of the universe than the end of it. So, more like it is growing. It'll die one day in the future.

 

[psychoslice]

We can't even decide if Pluto is a planet or not, so it seems rather baseless to say the universe is dying. It will of course cease to exist, at least as we know it, some day, but we've seen so very little and we know even less.

I agree, it makes me laugh how this little micro speak on this rock thinking they know something like when the cosmos is going to die, or if its going to die.

 

[Revoltingest]

It doesn't seem to me that the article suggests the universe is "dying." Unless I'm mistaken, it is still the case that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. That the matter and energy ceases to coalesce into stars and is spread out as something else doesn't mean the universe is "dead."

Yes, it does.
There will still be all the same matter & energy, but being very spread out & cold, there will be no life.

I agree, it makes me laugh how this little micro speak on this rock thinking they know something like when the cosmos is going to die, or if its going to die.

If the universe is a closed system, then we know.
But we don't know about that first part.

 

[Quintessence]

Yes, it does.
There will still be all the same matter & energy, but being very spread out & cold, there will be no life.

Sorry, I didn't take "dead" as a synonym for "no life," particularly when the overwhelming majority of the universe already lacks that quality (and thus, not being "alive" in the first place, cannot "die").

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Like us, the universe dies and will be reborn again.

 

[psychoslice]

Like us, the universe dies and will be reborn again.

That's it, its that simple.

 

[Revoltingest]

Sorry, I didn't take "dead" as a synonym for "no life," particularly when the overwhelming majority of the universe already lacks that quality (and thus, not being "alive" in the first place, cannot "die").

I meant "dead" in the sense of being a much less fun place.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

We've thought it's dying longer than that.
I recall from the days of yore, when I was a bright & smiling engineering student,
that my thermodynamics textbook had a bizarre one page chapter about entropy.
The authors decided that the implications of increasing entropy in a closed system
(the universe) meant that the universe would die from heat death. This was utterly
unacceptable, so they posited that there must be a supreme being to re-start it.

Asimov wrote a story about it. I can't remember the computer's name, nor the story's name, nor do I have the interest to look it up. But when I read it as an impressionable 11 or 12 year old, I remember finding it quite depressing and inspiring at the same time. The textbook authors probably borrowed the idea from him.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I meant "dead" in the sense of being a much less fun place.

Isn't that what heat death means?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

If the universe dies, what will it's ghost haunt?

 

[Revoltingest]

Isn't that what heat death means?

"Heat death" means that it'll all be cold & lacking in available energy, so that life & nothing interesting will happen.....ie, no fun.

 

[Saint_of_Me]

"For about two decades, scientists have suspected that our universe was fading, but didn’t have the full picture. According to the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) project and the largest multi-wavelength survey ever conducted, scientists discovered that older stars are fading out faster than new stars are being formed."

http://www.electronicproducts.com/A...cludes_that_the_universe_is_slowly_dying.aspx

So when the last spark in the universe dies out, is that it? Or is there a chance for life after the death of the universe?

I've always assume this universe is just a minute part of a larger process.

Well, I think it's a bit misleading to say the Universe is dying. Since none of us really needs to worry about is. Mankind will be long gone by the time our Sun dies out--rather, expands into a Red Giant and incinerates Earth--in about 5 Billion years from now.

But I guess it is technically accurate to say this. But it's in the same vein as saying that a newborn baby is dying from the moment after he is born.

As far as what will happen when the Universe "dies" is uncertain. But of course, there are always theories.

One of them postulates that the Big Bang of 14 Billion years ago was just one in an endless chain of Big Bangs. The cycle goes something like...Big Bang...Expansion....stasis...and then a slow contraction...back to a point of concentration...The Big Crunch!...And then ANOTHER Big Bang, and the process begins all over again.

This is a part of what we call the "Multi-Verse Theory."

And then we have the whole String Theory thing, with its 11 Dimensions, and many Universes. Saying that we are but one dimension of this.

Stephen Hawking always liked the idea of the Universe ending with the Big Crunch. But this was before the discovery of Dark Energy a few years ago, which showed that the Universe is expanding faster than we thought. Upending the old Hubble Constant Law. I am not sure if Hawking still subscribes to the Big Crunch idea now that we know about Dark Energy. (But we still have no idea exactly what comprises this Dark Energy. One idea is that it is a form of anti-matter.)

 

[Twilight Hue]

I'm not lying down. There's still a river left to cross, and a mountain left to climb......