Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: The last question.

Bigthink — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:58:51 +0100

To those who say that the literal sense of the story is impossible, let me remind you that a thousand years ago, the greatest philosophers knew no way of getting so far as the moon. But of course, I don' t take the story literally. I prefer to think of it as an analogy of our environmental exploitation. What do we do when we run out of oil? Can we find an alternative fuel with no negative impacts? Will THAT last forever? Of course, as I said before, a thousand years ago we didn't have a clue how to get to the moon, and now look at us. In a billion years, all variables that result in us blowing ourselves up aside, I think the technology in "the last question" could be plausible.

Comment on: The last question.

Bigthink — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:59:04 +0100

The only way out may be something that most science believes is impossible- a Time Machine or Time Travel to the past or perhaps an alternate reality or even a different version of our own universe. Remember the Sci-Fi TV show 'Sliders'?
Or Doctor Who. But in reality, we currently have no such devices, thankfully. Imagine the chaos that would result if such technology was abused by evil, greedy parties?
Besides, we have much more pressing issues to address before the Universe's time runs out. 100 billion years or so...

Comment on: The last question.

Bigthink — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:56:49 +0100

In more specific address of the question being asked: No, you can't reverse entropy. You can no more reverse entropy than you can change any other physical law of nature. You can't create a machine that will reverse the direction of the gravitational force from attraction to repulsion, or that will double the plank distance. These are properties of the universe, which cannot be changed.

Another way of thinking about it is, you can't write software that will change your hardware. (Hey, wait, that's a good idea...)

Comment on: The last question.

Bigthink — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:45:21 +0100

Neil deGrasse Tyson say in his book "Death by Black Hole" that a cold death of the universe is widely agreed upon by astrophysicists as the overwhelmingly likely ultimate outcome of the universe. Given that this is the case, there would seem to be nothing in science that would suggest any way to prevent this end.

Carl Sagan proposes an interesting fictional solution in his novel "Contact".

Comment on: The last question.

Bigthink — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:13:41 +0100

Good point, unless they just started yesterday.

Comment on: The last question.

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:40:17 +0100

I am just a tad skeptical about any idea that we would ever be able to fiddle the immutable-laws of Nature. Considering these fiddles would apply universally, and the fact that there are untold billions of civilizations that might be looking at the same options, the constancy of our cosmos suggests no change is possible.

Comment on: The last question.

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:04:27 +0100

I'd be astounded if the human race ever found a way reverse entropy. Just doing so would require fiddling with the essential factors that make this particular universe hang together the way it does, which would instantly destroy it. Don't worry. By the time our sun burns itself out, we'll be long gone.

Comment on: The last question.

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:25:10 +0100

I read the story, you mentioned it in one of your other posts so i decided to check it out.
Interesting story i liked it.

Well mattter can never be destroyed, but it can be converted to ennergy and vice versa. So i guess if we rerally had the resourses to utilize the stars we would simply need to get energy out of matter.