

The Thinkers: Black holes, black energy and the history of the universe - edw519
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09243/994390-298.stm

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David
I've always been of the opinion that human existence will end because of the
2nd law of thermodynamics, through the continual change of various forms of
energy into heat. Looks like the black holes are with me on this one.

But I don't really know what that means. Some questions:

How much will the average temperature of the universe increase? Since energy
is neither created nor destroyed, there's a finite amount of it in the
universe, so there is an absolute maximum (average) temperature, if all of it
were converted to heat (Nobody's holding out on us with a _preexisting_
infinite energy source, right? (How would that work? I'm not really sure. But
it would definitely obey the no-creation clause they stuck on the universe.))

How long will it take? If it takes even a few billion years, we'll probably
have wiped ourselves out. I guess I'm contradicting myself... let me qualify
my belief, then. As long as we haven't gotten to us first, then the increasing
entropy of the universe will do us in. =P

I think that last one largely depends on universal efficiency, ie the rate of
loss-to-heat of various energy conversions. (Sounds like black holes are
pretty bad. Converting up to 40% of mass's kinetic energy to heat... talk
about heat pollution! (But wait. Heat is kinetic energy on a molecular scale,
right? So really that conversion is just large-scale motion to small-scale
motion. I guess that's actually a definition of entropy: Conversion of
cohesiveness into even distribution. Or random distribution, I should say.)

I think I should stop now. Apologies for rambling. =)

