Staving off the end of the universe.

[Meredith]

I know there are several theories about how the universe will end. Big Crunch, Big Rip, Big Freeze. In What ways could human or alien involvement end or postphone the end of everything?

Here is one of my solutions:

Problem: Big Freeze, universe keeps expanding at a constant rate, the distance between stars and galaxies grows larger and larger with time. Eventually all matter looses energy and the mean temprature of the universe approaches absolute zero.

Solution: Build large machines the size of planets or larger that utilize Zero Point Energy. These huge machines will use the energy extracted from zero point energy to create new matter like a replicator in Star Trek. The matter will take 2 forms, large clouds of gas and dust or more copies of itself. They will become a manmade implementation of Steady State Theory, producing new matter in the gaps between the expanding galaxies and making more of themselves to fill in the ever increasing gaps. New stars and entire galaxies will form from the newly created gas giving the universe life eternal.

Drawbacks: Relies on Zero Point energy extraction which may not be feasible. Also the expansion of the universe itself could have an effect on how much energy you could extract from Zero Point Space. It could get lower and lower as the universe expands only providing a stop-gap solution that could only buy a few more trillion years at the least, 10^50 years at the most. Extracting Zero Point energy could have a harmful effect on space-time causing the universe to either collapse or the acceleration to spiral out of control even actually causing a Big Rip. It culd even cause a Vaccum meta-stability event that would destroy the very universe, though it could be argued that might be better than a cold frozen death.



What Ideas you got to stave off the end of everything?

 

[iguana_tonante]

What Ideas you got to stave off the end of everything?

Throw a party.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

Does anyone suppose the laws of physics would allow opening wormholes to other universes that are not approaching their respective ends? I am wondering whether advanced civilizations could avoid the Heat Death or the Big Crunch by emigrating to another universe.

 

[Meredith]

Does anyone suppose the laws of physics would allow opening wormholes to other universes that are not approaching their respective ends? I am wondering whether advanced civilizations could avoid the Heat Death or the Big Crunch by emigrating to another universe.

emigration from this universe is also another option though most versions involve building a solar system sized accelerator that sends a small probe the size of a grain of rice into the new universe that would contain enough DNA and information to rebuild your society on the other size, but that is using our current limited knowledge as a baseline.

One issue is if the rules of physics are different then the rice grain sized probe could just go "poof" when it hits the other side due to the matter decaying as a result of the different laws of physics.

 

[anti-matter]

While the universe has been proven to be expanding... what about orbiting plants around suns like our? Is Earth spinning away farther from the sun...I dunno. But on the science channel I learned that the moon is slowly spinning farther away from the earth.

 

[Lindley]

^That's thinking a bit nearer-term than the subject of this thread.....

 

[ThunderAeroI]

i like the idea of dna transfer. maybe thats why all life in the universe has a common dna stand....ie the chase

 

[farmkid]

i like the idea of dna transfer. maybe thats why all life in the universe has a common dna stand....ie the chase

What makes you think all life in the universe has a common DNA strand? All life on Earth does, but that's easily explainable by evolution. Only in Star Trek does life from other planets share our DNA. When we encounter life on other planets, maybe we'll find your statement is correct, and then we'll have to try to explain it. Until then, I think we're pretty safe saying any life outside of Earth (if there is any) does not use the same genetic code as Earth-based life.

 

[scotthm]

What makes you think all life in the universe has a common DNA strand? All life on Earth does...

You answered the question yourself.

---------------

 

[ThunderAeroI]

That and we are on a Star Trek BBS. Any answer must by default be related to an episode of Star Trek...right?

I personally think that if we find that all common life in the universe is from 1 common set of DNA then either one of three things is possible, although not necessarily mutually exclusive.

1). God created us in his image, his image being the most complex DNA there is. The Amoeba.

2). We (the children of the universe) sent our DNA back into another universe or time. (i.e. this thread).

3). The entire Chase idea from TNG.
I am perfectly happy to think that we are currently alone in the universe and it is our role to spread our seed and make the Chase reality. That’s a rather obsured idea for sure, but considering the complexity of life we just don’t know.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I was under the impression that according to Steven Hawking black holes were responsible for the creation of new nebulae and thus new stars and that Stars would never entirely burn out, now i'm aware that stars will become more distant but thats nothing that a generational type ship or warp drive cant cure.

 

[Canadave]

Personally, I'm planning on building a restaurant.

 

[FordSVT]

I was under the impression that according to Steven Hawking black holes were responsible for the creation of new nebulae and thus new stars and that Stars would never entirely burn out, now i'm aware that stars will become more distant but thats nothing that a generational type ship or warp drive cant cure.

We're talking hundreds of billions or a trillion (or more) years from now. Entropy, heat death, the end of everything. Not a single energetic particle in the universe, and the average temperature becomes absolute zero. Basically, the universe will eventually just plain get tired out and die, like a rolling ball that finally comes to rest. By then, all the galaxies and galaxy clusters in the universe would have long since dissipated, and our own galaxy and solar system would be ancient, ancient history.

Any life that would be able to hang on in such conditions would be terribly, terribly advanced. Perhaps a pocket universe or a move to another universe would be easily within their grasp. Maybe our own universe is the end result of such a migration, who knows?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

What about black holes or neutron stars? will they also seize the exist in some way? if such objects as these remain in the dead universe then maybe an advanced enough civilisation could tap these black holes and neutron stars to generate power and generate artificial sources of heat and build some form of Dyson spheres around them.
Wouldn't planets technically still be floating around in interstellar space even when all the stars have died out? these could be tapped for construction resources.

EDIT: Hell no! just read that even black holes will evaporate and Neutrons will completely decay. We're doooooomed.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Sorry folks, but I checked with my congressman and he said we won't get any funding for staving off the end of the universe until all the poor people are taken care of.

 

[Trekker4747]

The end of the universe is billions if not trillions of years away. I think we've time to figure it out.

I remember reading a neat short story once. In it Man keeps asking "How do we prevent the end of the universe?" They eventualy build a machine that is powerful enough to compute this answer. They ask it and it responds to give it time to mull the answer over. Years pass, decades pass, and they ask it how it's coming. "I still need time," the computer says and goes back to processing. Centuries pass, man ventures out into space all the while expanding this computer's capapbilites in a hope to get the answer sooner. "Still need time it says." Millineia pass, eons, parts of this computer now stretch beneath the fabric of space, the universe becomes dangerous close to the time of The End. "Still thinking about it," says the computer. Finally, fate happens and the universe finishes imploding, collapsing into a giant, but comparatively small, ball of all matter and energy. Now the computer finishes processing and says, "I got it! LET THERE BE LIGHT!" and cools the universe just enough to allow the the matter and gas to expand and burst outward where it will form stars, planets, and galaxies.

 

[farmkid]

The end of the universe is billions if not trillions of years away. I think we've time to figure it out.

I remember reading a neat short story once. In it Man keeps asking "How do we prevent the end of the universe?" They eventualy build a machine that is powerful enough to compute this answer. They ask it and it responds to give it time to mull the answer over. Years pass, decades pass, and they ask it how it's coming. "I still need time," the computer says and goes back to processing. Centuries pass, man ventures out into space all the while expanding this computer's capapbilites in a hope to get the answer sooner. "Still need time it says." Millineia pass, eons, parts of this computer now stretch beneath the fabric of space, the universe becomes dangerous close to the time of The End. "Still thinking about it," says the computer. Finally, fate happens and the universe finishes imploding, collapsing into a giant, but comparatively small, ball of all matter and energy. Now the computer finishes processing and says, "I got it! LET THERE BE LIGHT!" and cools the universe just enough to allow the the matter and gas to expand and burst outward where it will form stars, planets, and galaxies.

I read that too a year or so ago. I don't remember what it's called, but if I remember right it was a short story by Isaac Asimov.

 

[Trekker4747]

The end of the universe is billions if not trillions of years away. I think we've time to figure it out.

I remember reading a neat short story once. In it Man keeps asking "How do we prevent the end of the universe?" They eventualy build a machine that is powerful enough to compute this answer. They ask it and it responds to give it time to mull the answer over. Years pass, decades pass, and they ask it how it's coming. "I still need time," the computer says and goes back to processing. Centuries pass, man ventures out into space all the while expanding this computer's capapbilites in a hope to get the answer sooner. "Still need time it says." Millineia pass, eons, parts of this computer now stretch beneath the fabric of space, the universe becomes dangerous close to the time of The End. "Still thinking about it," says the computer. Finally, fate happens and the universe finishes imploding, collapsing into a giant, but comparatively small, ball of all matter and energy. Now the computer finishes processing and says, "I got it! LET THERE BE LIGHT!" and cools the universe just enough to allow the the matter and gas to expand and burst outward where it will form stars, planets, and galaxies.

I read that too a year or so ago. I don't remember what it's called, but if I remember right it was a short story by Isaac Asimov.

Yeah, my vauge memory seems to think it was Asimov too. I read a version of it in a really neat, mind-opening, book called "Hyperspace."

 

[yammerhead]

"The Last Question"

 

[Anduril]

Personally, I relish in the fact that everything will end one day. Humans are insignificant anyways so it doesn't really matter.

On a lighter note, "Hyperspace" is one of my most cherished books.