Timeline for answer to A brief dip into the heat death of the universe by N. Virgo
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 12, 2016 at 14:59 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | @Nathaniel: I was wondering about that, and also whether it could happen even without time travel, that a positive and a negative charge get separated in that way. | |
| Mar 12, 2016 at 3:57 | comment | added | N. Virgo | @SteveJessop though it could easily be that those positive charges are beyond the cosmic horizon of the negative charges left by the astronauts, in which case they will indeed last forever. | |
| Mar 12, 2016 at 3:47 | comment | added | Xandar The Zenon | Googol is not a number! I take that under protest. (Please don't reply to this comment, my stand is up changeable.) | |
| Mar 12, 2016 at 1:44 | comment | added | N. Virgo | @RobWatts there is something in it though - the cosmic microwave background. In today's time this is about 3 kelvin (i.e. 3 degrees above absolute zero) and an object far from any galaxies will very slowly come to equilibrium with that. In ten-to-the-googolplex years' time that radiation will still be there, it will just be much colder. | |
| Mar 12, 2016 at 1:39 | comment | added | N. Virgo | @SteveJessop excellent point! So eventually all trace of them will be lost after all! | |
| Mar 11, 2016 at 21:46 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | @RobWatts: well, the heat death universe is cold in the sense that if you were in thermal equilibrium with it then your temperature would be extremely low (zero point energy or whatever -- there's no cosmic background radiation worth anything). It doesn't feel cold because you'll be nowhere near thermal equilibrium with it until long after you're dead. | |
| Mar 11, 2016 at 19:48 | comment | added | Rob Watts | "completely and utterly cold beyond all conception of coldness" - a vacuum isn't cold. There's nothing in it to be cold. If you were in a vacuum, you'd have to worry far more about overheating than about getting too cold. | |
| Mar 11, 2016 at 18:12 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | "Though if they happen to have left a net charge there might be a few electrons left over, which can never decay because there are no protons left in the entirety of the rest of the Universe" -- if they do that then there must be a matching positive charge somewhere else in the rest of the future Universe. Namely, the positive imbalance that results from them re-appearing in the present day with fewer electrons than they left with! | |
| Mar 11, 2016 at 16:27 | history | answered | N. Virgo | CC BY-SA 3.0 |