/sci/ - Science & Math

There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer.

> Is it even possible for time to be infinite?
No reason to think it can't.

Also, if you google this, you might find it comforting. (Read the story) >>2367080

The universe only goes as far as we observe it. In other words it never ends until as long as we are looking.

>>2367089
If I Google what?

>>2367115

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov

>>2367115
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

>>2367102
>Solipsism
laughinggirls.jpg

>>2367102
>implying there is no objective reality
This trolling is getting old.

>comforting
>logic

Pick one.

>>2367146
Being in possession of the truth IS comforting, once you accept it.

>>2367074
First things first.
People who actually study universe, claim that universe will expand. Expand beyond our imagination, that means it will take few (even more) billions of years until one particle will meet another.
Second - time will exist as long as universe will exist. That means it'll be infinite. And by "infinite" I mean: it had beginning but it will not have an and.

There is no such thing as time as you understand it.

>>2367160

But you can never know if your knowledge is true.

>>2367137
>implying there is
Prove it.

>>2367166
For there to be an infinite future there would have had to have been an infinite past.

You can never "reach" forever, so technically it will never ever get to forever, always a finite number, but still trying to comprehend THAT brings me panic!

>>2367231
>For there to be an infinite future there would have had to have been an infinite past.
Why?

>>2367122

this is such a great story! Never really read sci fi until now.

I once read an interesting notion in the defense of the Big Crunch (or Big Bounce if you support the concept of a cyclical universe). It was stated that despite observing that the universe was being accelerated in its expansion by an unseen "dark" energy that would appear to ultimately rip the universe apart we shouldn't make any assumptions. While that certainly does seem likely it is far from validated.

We know so little about this force of nature and how/why it is doing what it is doing so to conclude that it will continue on this course is also a bit of an assumption. We haven't exactly crossed the threshold of no return so there possibly may be a period in the lifetime of the universe where dark energy weakens or vanishes and gravity resumes sovereignty over all matter and brings everything together into a singularity and restarts the universe with recycled materials.

Considering the questionable nature of dark energy, no one truly has any verifiable reason to declare the Big Rip any more likely than the Big Crunch or the Big Chill.

Why do you care what happens after you die? I like to imagine the universe will end when I do, I hate the thought of assholes going on living without me.

>>2367337
>after I die
>implying I will die

>>2367337

Gotta love how this thread totally has no real scientific approach. Yes, you and OP can go ahead and think about whatever makes you feel better.

>>2367239
>>2367408
Nothing finite can become infinite. You can't ever reach forever, so it would always be finite.

I don't understand how it's impossible for existence to cease, just incomprehensible as it's unknown (okay, if I sound like I'm contradicting myself, shut the fuck up). Without time, nothing exists - not even blackness. And this implied "dark period" would have to have time, just very slowed down.

>>2367452
time could possibly not exist at one point, only matters

>>2367470
Wat?

This also bothers me for a slightly different reason. It's ugly. It's uneven. The universe starts in an explosion, then dies in darkness? It's so spread out that nothing can happen? For the rest of eternity? That sounds retarded to me. The only cool thing would be if the universe re collapses and starts again.

The universe came from nothing.
It can end just as suddenly.
and it can start anew just as suddenly.
seriously there could be many big bangs happening right now.

OP sounds like you need to watch Stephen Hawking's "Into the Universe" episode: The Story of Everything. It's great, informative, and tells you how everything in the universe came to be and what will come out of it, and is a great show at the same time. Long story short, the universe collapses and expands on itself over and over again forever, and time as we perceive it is nothing compared to the universe on a small scale

>>2367408
that's because we don't know
here i'll try something based on my non-knowledge of science:

energy cannot be destroyed. so if the big crunch is possible, all energy gets combined back into one point to start again. Energy always existed in one form or another so either the universe always was, or came into being from nothing [ex nihilo]

voila.

>>2367505
*Sigh*, I dunno how you guys find comfort in all this.

>>2367496

A shame nature doesn't succumb to peer pressure and only does things you find "cool".

>>2367526

Holy shit you sound like the world revolves around making you feel better. It's not intended to be a comfortable world view. It's about as retarded as complaining about how the winter is uncomfortable, but it's still going to be there regardless of how you feel. Nature's a bitch.

>>2367526

You're a silly little human being. Whether time is infinite or finite, your head will explode conceptualizing either.

Just eat, fuck bitches, die.

>>2367570

It is funny to consider how a system emerged in the universe that allowed for sentient organisms to question its existence yet not be fully equipped with the mental capacity to fathom some of its basic principles. If Carl Sagan were still around, he would say that the Universe was trying to confuse itself.

>>2367567
Looks like someone's mad because they feel thinking logically is all about being an emotionless tool that gets butthurt when others express emotion.

>>2367452
A ray is an example of something starting at a point and extending infinitely. Time is like a ray. It started at the Big Bang and will continue without ceasing.

>>2367703
Why does it HAVE to extend infinitely though? It can't. You can never reach infinity unless you can look infinitely into the future and know everything that would happen, forever.

>>2367122
god damn it that was the best thing i've ever read.

We are living in a false vacuum. When you comprehend this, you will know true terror.

I wish I could unlearn it.

Time is technincally not infinite, we only perceive time as linear, as humans, we don't have the capability to reach it, so for us, it has no end from our perspective, and thus we generalize it as infinite.
Time is actually one instantaneous event, and so everything that will happen has happened.

>>2367764
Why? Are you saying what I think is true?

Also doesn't the reason we still exist nullify this fear?

>>2367764

Fuck you for reminding me, good sir.

Do explain in detail what horror this pertains. I'm too lazy to type out an explination as to laws of physics and chemistry suddenly being changed (Or even going as far as to become nonexistant) would be a bad thing.

>>2367786
In a cosmological sense it relates to what is called vacuum genesis: the idea that something can come from nothing. If a vacuum is nothing, then the question becomes how do particles appear from nothing, and are they observed to do so?

The answer is that Yes, they're observed to appear from the best vacuum states we can produce in labs (in particle accelerator test chambers, for example) in the forms of electron/positron pairs and pairings of other so-called "virtual particles."

The cosmological idea of vacuum genesis, therefore, is that if we can do this on very small scales in experiments, then perhaps nature could do it with the Universe as a whole ... that is, the entire observable Universe could have originated in similar fashion from a void, or vacuum.

in other words...we running on "borrowed time"

a few billion eons is but an eye blink to the eternal natural order of things...that being nothing

>>2367811

Thank you kind sir.

>>2367811
that made me all warm and fuzzy inside

i like the idea that not only is the universe expanding, but it's expanding faster and faster, forever...

The Universe only exists because you can experience it. Therefore, if, when you die, you are not able to experience it, then, for all intents and purposes, it does not exist.

>>2367811
What if it comes back and kills itself because it's sick of being around for so long?

>>2367811
finally someone who knows what they're fucking talking about.

Also, I'd like to add that the only consoling truths in life are scientific truths. If you live by other truths, you're delusional, or worse: relusional. GASP*

Here's a few words of logic: if this ever happens, it will be long after the sun has wiped out this solar system in a catastrophic supernova.

>>2368123
>Sol
>Supernova

>>2368123

Following said logic: Humanity's exponential explosion of technological achievements in such a short period of time just goes to show that anything is possible. Given the length of time we would have known of the Sun's expected life cycle's stages, I'm sure our species would have planned some means of escape for the sake of their civilization, culture, and genetics. Granted by that time whatever species does this would be far from being considered human, our legacy would still reside within our descendants in the distant future.

Given the likelihood that if we even survived that long that we would be perfectly capable of interstellar travel by then. If that's the case, I'm sure our legacy would have a chance of continuing on until the "end of the universe".

well at least im not the only one who gets panic attacks over this haha... maybe once a week i'll be in bed and suddenly i remember everything... then its lights back on, standing in front of the mirror and saying ofuckofuckofuckofuck

then i usually take a slash and go back to bed feeling ok lol

>>2367074

>>...gives me panic attacks...

not to worry, there's a couple of days left yet.

>>2368123
The Sun (Sol) is a Medium-Sequence Star and is waaay too small to go supernova. It will become a Red Giant, engulfing Mercury and Venus and scorchhing Earth, before cooling into a White Dwarf.

It will certainly NOT destroy the Solar System.

Have solace in this >>2368220 , because this is probably going to happen.