The Real Armageddon

NASA The human race will have ceased to exist before the fate of the Universe is revealed.

Worse still, in a universe dominated by vacuum energy, life must eventually run out of available stores of energy which it can use to survive. The vast energy of empty space is inaccessible for such use, and the accessible energy is carried away too quickly for us to collect. Like a mariner becalmed on an ocean of salt water who utters "water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink!" we will be adrift in a cosmic sea of energy without any to spare for our own metabolism.

What if the acceleration of the Universe eventually ceases - is there then any hope for life? In 1979, physicist Freeman Dyson proposed that if we were particularly careful, and hibernated for longer and longer periods, life could survive with a finite amount of available energy for an infinite amount of time. On the other hand, Starkman and I have more recently argued that prospects for intelligent life, at least, are less hopeful. Quantum mechanics will ultimately limit the ability of life to perform the computations necessary for consciousness. This issue is not yet settled, however. Dyson has not given up, and we are continuing our friendly debate.

We have lots of time for discussion. Even if the limits we have described on the long-term perdurability of life eventually come to pass, we are talking about literally billions of billions of billions of billions of times the present age of the Universe.

Well before these cosmic limits come to into play, life on Earth will have to face far more immediate challenges, associated with the evolution of our planet and the death of the Sun. Having the foresight and cooperation needed to deal with these global changes will be more demanding than any other challenge our civilization has ever faced. Hopefully we will be up to the task – and it will help to put us on track to tackle whatever future the Universe may have in store.

For more information

Video: Birth of the Universe [FirstScience presents]
We travel through space and time to reveal the amazing story of how the universe was born, how it created everything in our world, and eventually how it will die.