Ep. 87: The End of the Universe Part 2: The End of Everything

Artist illustration of a White Dwarf. credit:

Hopefully you've all recovered from part 1 of this set, where we make you sad about the future of the humanity, the Earth, the Sun and the Solar System. But hang on, we're really going to bring you down. Today we'll look far far forward into the distant future of the Universe, at timescales that we can barely comprehend. Episode 87: The End of the Universe Part 2: The End of Everything

Show Notes

Episode 87: The End of the Universe Part 2: The End of Everything

1. Tom Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 12:26 am

   oops fraser, you introduced the show as march 5th (its may)
   

2. fan Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 9:01 am

   oops the clip is less than 2 mins!

3. Hisham Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 11:32 am

   Hello,

   I really enjoyed the last to episodes. I have one thought going through my mind. You are looking into the future with today's technology. Maybe, if we existed in a trillion year, will have a better detections and monitering equipments that even if the galaxies are parting a high speed and are at a very far distance, we will still be able to see them.

4. haloflightleader Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 12:01 am

   Fraser,

   You have a great show here. But I wish you'd let Dr. Gay explain and stop interrupting and interjecting. You remind me of me in class, the guy that keeps trying to finish the teacher's sentence.

   For a while in this episode, you were the one explaining stuff. When Dr. Gay would start, you'd inteject, "So… bla bla bla" Let her finish, man. She's the astrophysicist.

   I don't mean this as an indictment to you because I think you're an intelligent guy, except, I think a show like this needs a more preparation instead of adlibing. Dr Gay is this Class O star of knowledge and we need to harness that power by posing insightful questions. Barbara Walters, Oprah, and many renowned interviewers produce timeless discussions because they prepared. When I say prepared, I mean asking questions people want answered and having a good follow up to it and after having asked the question, allowing the person time to answer clearly and completely.

   But hey, the show is still great. Thanks.

5. Astronomy Cast Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

   Fraser here… so now I'm getting told to do two things. We get a lot of comments that people wish I wouldn't play the fool so much. And yet, you're saying, just ask the questions and shut up.

   Our hope is that the show sounds more like a conversation. Sometimes, I don't have much knowledge to bring to the table. And in other situations, like this one, I've written a very deeply researched article on the topic and have a lot to contribute. I know it all sounds ad libbed, but part of my role is to have the show follow a narrative that we plan in advance.

   I sometimes interrupt Pamela to make sure that we cover the points that we're trying to hit. Otherwise, we can sometimes tangent our way across the Universe and skip key details. So what sounds like me interrupting, is actually me keeping ourselves organized.

6. haloflightleader Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 11:18 pm

   Hey Fraser,

   I apologize for my offensive comment. I do not mean to offend, I was just being self-righteous, I guess. I do believe that your show is a great service.

   "We get a lot of comments that people wish I wouldn't play the fool so much"
   No one is asking you to be the fool, in fact, I truly believe you know a lot about this stuff. It's just that I hope you'd listen again to the show and you may catch a glimpse of what my words aren't articulating. Allowing a question to be answered uninterrupted doesn't mean you're playing the fool, in fact it's quite the opposite. I hope that you'll be able to see through my impoliteness and maybe see the nugget of truth in it. I truly apologize if I'm being obnoxious; for what it's worth everyone I know thinks I'm an ass.

   "So what sounds like me interrupting, is actually me keeping ourselves organized."
   I understand, but in this case, let's be a little less organized. Here I go again (I'm hitting myself on the head with an asteroid replica).

   Some interesting topics that may verge on being outside the scope of the show's charter would be "What is behind the fabric of space itself?" Before the Big Bang all of existence was infinitely small, what was it "in"? If I keep going straight in space will I hit something or maybe I'll just circle back. On intelligence, could it be one of those a dime a dozen properties of living things? What if the Drake Equation is right and there are many intelligent civilizations out there that have been stuck at cogito ergo sum? This would be so embarrassing for humans; once we were at the top, the only sentient beings only to find out we're not that special. The effects of such an event on religion, racism, humanity and other things would be so profound. God created us all in His image, what if Mr. Spock and Lt. Worf beams down in the middle of your show and says the same thing, the wars it would start would be catastrophic. Maybe m-theory is correct, and there is an infinite number of other universes out there one for every possibility where I turned left instead of right or one where I wrote a better comment than this one, whatever. And I think you and Dr. Gay have tangented on a few of these points in your previous shows, but give us the gift of being enthralled by allowing a story to be completed. I guess I've been spoiled by NPR.

   Lastly, Dr. Gay, I totally have a crush on you. You know so much about this stuff, it's a turn on. Anyway, the show is fantabulously wonderful. Thank you both for this public service and making astronomy not so scary. Woohoo AstronomyCast REWLZ!!!

   haloflightleader

7. JustinWilson Says:
   May 8th, 2008 at 11:58 am

   Fraser and Pamela,

   I have been listening for a long time, and finally I have been inspired to dust off the old telescope and go look at the sky again! Thanks for that.

   Justin

8. dollhopf Says:
   May 8th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

   Between timestamps 22:00 and 22:08 of the recording, Dr. Gay stated something I transcripted as follows:

   "these black holes start evaporating and the small ones go first and they sure pop off into nothingness."

   My knowledge on the physics of black holes is ashaming small. So maybe anybody can explain, what is wrong with the idea that only the event horizon should vanish and that the matter "inside" the shrinked black hole then should "come back". If a black hole evaporated much "enough", why should it's gravitational pull not have got small enough to let light escape again (and other things also)? Is the fate of evaporating black holes necessarily nothingness?

9. haloflightleader Says:
   May 8th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

   Correct me if I'm wrong, but this was a theory by Stephen Hawking at one time, that the black hole would be so dense and full of matter that it would just vanish. Many people disagreed with him on this. But some years later, he conceded that he may have been wrong, that the black hole doesn't actually disappear, it just moves to a different Universe or dimension.

   I remember something like this.

10. IBY Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

    I have also heard of an interpretation of the big rip. Which one is more probable? The heat death or the rip?

11. John Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 9:04 am

    Comment 8/9:

    The black hole gets smaller, thanks to Hawking radiation. So far as I remember, the smaller the black hole, the faster the hawking radiation occurs, so the smaller ones go poof first.

    I don't think they just disappear into nothingness. I think they do explode when they get below the chandreskhar limit (in mass) but I'm not certain about that. I'm sure a google of hawking radiation will answer that question.

    Hawkings ideas of bubble universes, budding off of ours through black holes, is gone into more detail in his book Black Holes and Baby Universes.

12. John Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 9:06 am

    Comment 10:
    It's hard to tell, but right now, I think the liklihood is the BigRip, simply because dark energy appears to be accelerating the seperation between galaxies. If this dark energy, which appears to act contrary to gravity, holds sway into the deep deep future, then we may get a Big Rip situation before heat death.

13. John Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 9:17 am

    haloflightleader / Comment 6:
    I understand what you're saying, and I *kind* of agree with it. I don't think you're an ass for verbalising it.

    The thing is, watching any TV show documentary, or even radio, we may all disagree or find fault with a participant. The internet is unique in letting the listener in behind the curtain.

    Comment 5:
    Fraser, I also love this show. It reawakened my interest in astronomy. I also understand that it has to be aimed in a casual way at people of differing levels of expertise and knowledge, which is a hard juggling act. I love the show and look forward to it every week.

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