The Universe is Over the Hill.

[Monte Davis]

Conceptually at least, not new news: in a precursor theory to the big bang
<http://www.aip.org/history/cosmology/ideas/expanding.htm> , Georges
Lemaitre called the universe we see "ashes and smoke of bright but very
rapid fireworks."

 

>From  a thermodynamic POV, too, most of the action has happened: things
cooled off so fast in the first seconds that even the hottest stars today
are cryogenic by comparison. Now, we think interactions and processes were
very simple at that ultra-high temperature, i.e. that complexities like
geology and chemistry and biology can only happen once things have cooled
way down.

 

But if some kind of complexity *did* come about a fraction of a second after
inception, operating with quark chromodynamics and the strong nuclear force
(many orders of magnitude stronger than the electromagnetism that governs
nearly all of our experience). it could have evolved (sensu lato) very far
very fast.

 

Gelidly yours,  

 

 

 

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of David Morris
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 11:25 AM
To: P-list
Subject: The Universe is Over the Hill.

 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/2012/11/19/the-stars-are-
beginning-to-go-out/

 

The universe is apparently well past its prime in terms of making stars, and
what new ones are being made now across the cosmos will never amount to more
than a few percent on top of the numbers already come and gone.

 

[...]

 

The main conclusions come in two parts. First, 95% of all the stars we see
around us today were formed during the past 11 billion years, and about half
of these were formed between roughly 11 and 8 billion years ago in a flurry
of activity. But the real shocker is that the rate at which new stars are
being produced in galaxies today is barely 3% of the rate back 11 billion
years ago, and declining. This indicates that unless our universe finds a
second wind (which is unlikely) it will only ever manage to produce about 5%
more stars than exist at this very moment.

This is, quite literally, the beginning of the end.

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