The end

[Bungielad]

A bit of a strange thought here but something iv been pondering over.....if you had the chance to see the end of Earths existence would you want to be here to see it? (Taking into consideration that we havent destroyed our selves) Your given the opportunity of immortality so you can servive through all of the turbulent goings on, you wont get hungry, you wont go blind or burn up...etc etc....would you want to see it??

[baggywrinkle]

Only if there was a decent double nippy of very expensive single malt to go with the view...

[Scott]

already saw it on Dr Who a couple of years ago. wasn't that good really .

Umm, in answer to your question... I think I'd rather see the death of a star than the demise of a planet although thinking about it, I suppose they usually go hand in hand.

[acey]

The end will be very slow and drawn out (gradual extinction of life, heating of planet, possible swallowing by outer envelope of red-giant sun followed by long cooling). So I think it might get a bit boring after the first million years or so.

[Cath]

My advise would be to not wish for immortality.

The consequences of such a state would eventually be a permanent (forever) state of terror, it would become far worse than your worse nightmares. Don't go there!

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Only if there is nothing better on.

As acey says, it would be a very drawn-out process; while I'd like to know what will happen I wouldn't want a ring-side seat. The Earth is thought to become largely uninhabitable within the next 500 million to 1 billion years due to the warming Sun, caused by the build up of helium in its core. Our atmosphere and oceans will be boiled off into space. The actual physical fate of the planet is more uncertain. Simulations suggest we will swallowed by the Sun when it becomes a red giant; even if it doesn't extend as far as our orbit, tidal interactions will probably send us spiralling inwards to be engulfed.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Add time travel and start up a restaurant at the end of the earth

[Treeden]

Only if there was a decent double nippy of very expensive single malt to go with the view...

Wasn't it Archimedes who once said "Give me a place to sit (with a good single malt) and I can watch the Earth perish"?

[Jules Tohpipi]

Better than that, just book a table at Milliways

[Treeden]

When I first read that I thought you were warning us about a restaurant somewhere in Cambridgeshire were the service is really slow!

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "The Universe as we know it has now been in existence for over one hundred and seventy thousand million billion years and will be ending in a little over half an hour. So, welcome one and all to Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe!"

— The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

[Bungielad]

Some funny and good comments there, personally I think id like to be standing on the Barron Earth just as it was going to be swallowed up by the sun with a can of strongbow inn hand and singing in the words of homer himself.......so long suckers..lol

[cjoe]

If we ever last untill the end I'd rather we were all stood on a new host planet, in relative comfort, looking back at earths demise through a large telescope, sipping warm single malt.

[symesie04]

Some funny and good comments there, personally I think id like to be standing on the Barron Earth just as it was going to be swallowed up by the sun with a can of strongbow inn hand and singing in the words of homer himself.......so long suckers..lol

Would the Strongbow be immortal as well then? If not i suspect you may find your tin rahter empty and somewaht warm upon the lips.

[Macavity]

Maybe like when moving house (several times) I would feel few regrets. Except that the buyers made bigger profits from selling it on subsequently! (Maybe some "property developers" will "redevelop" the Earth?) When my school was demolished, a few of us returned to spectate. Remembering Winsor Davis (It ain't half hot mum) my thoughts at the time were: "Oh dear, 'ow sad - Never mind"?

I suppose each time I have imagined the new place would be "better" than the old one. This rarely proved so...

[ollypenrice]

Since I don't believe we understand time I don't think I believe in 'the end...'

Olly

[Superdavo]

The end will be very slow and drawn out (gradual extinction of life, heating of planet, possible swallowing by outer envelope of red-giant sun followed by long cooling). So I think it might get a bit boring after the first million years or so.

If you start talking about the end of the universe, it becomes far worse. In the heat death scenario, it would take about 100,000,000,000,000 years for all red dwarf stars to die, about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years for all the white dwarves to cool off, and then about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years for all the black holes to self-destruct. Now that would get boring!

[Tiki]

Since I don't believe we understand time I don't think I believe in 'the end...'

Olly

Do you believe in 'the beginning'?

[fasteddy]

Cant see us being on this planet in the future.. Planets are dangerous things (ask any dinosaur) and it would be far better to hollow out a few asteroids, spin them up and terraform the interior.. Planets have too many lethal aspects to them, what with tectonics, global severe weather cycles and the shopping channel.. One big meteor or a small comet and its all over for mother earth, or at least us living on it...

Does get me thinking tho... Not that long ago we were beating our dinner to death with the remains of the last one, now we are detecting earth like planets many light years away..

Makes me wonder where we will all be in 500 years, 5000, 50 000 etc...

[Earl]

There is no end, just a transition to something else.

[Cath]

Well, first we didn't exist (no memory of existing anyway), now we do!

We can't say we'll never exist again, cuz we haven't got the foggiest idea how it all came about this time round, or what it's all about.

[ollypenrice]

Do you believe in 'the beginning'?

Probably not. I generally object to 'Before the Big Bang' by saying that I'd prefer the expression 'Outside the Big Bang.' For me, Before, After, Beginning, End, are terms predicated on our present understanding of time, which I think is hopelssly localized and incomplete. I have no better alternative but there's lots of evidence to suggest that 'past present future' won't do for much longer!!!

Ollly

[Cath]

Yes we've definitely got something wrong when it comes to our idea of 'time', I deeply suspect we are currently just scratching the surface of any of it.

[Earl]

Probably not. I generally object to 'Before the Big Bang' by saying that I'd prefer the expression 'Outside the Big Bang.' For me, Before, After, Beginning, End, are terms predicated on our present understanding of time, which I think is hopelssly localized and incomplete. I have no better alternative but there's lots of evidence to suggest that 'past present future' won't do for much longer!!!

Ollly

I feel the problem is linguistic more than anything else, we don't have the language to express ideas outside of our perception of reality which is unique to each observer, and this is just perception which is also limited to the equipment we use. (terrible grammar sorry but i cant think of how to phrase all that )

[Scott]

I may be way off the mark here but I think that time does have past present and future. after all, this concept was conceived on earth about earthly things. I think it's more the fact that we are trying to apply time to universal matters where we fail rather than time itself. what we need is other "terminology" when talking about space.

I'll just wait to be shot down in flames now for what I've said (past, present and future, all in one sentence )

edi:- did I just say what Earl said?

[ollypenrice]

Past, present and future are fine locally. Local concepts for local people! They work well for us and they do exist for us. However, when we start talking on cosmological scales how sure are we they they remain useful terms? Time is a dimension which seems, to us, to have a one way flow and a strange moving moment which we call 'now' or 'the present.' One definition of 'the present' would be 'the only part of the time dimension we can detect.' We can detect neither the past nor the future. We can find evidence in favour of the past having happened and we can make hypotheses about the future which are likely to prove correct but we cannot detect them directly.

Now, does this fact of only detecting the present have something to do with our perception of a flow? Maybe there isn't a real flow. Maybe there is no cause or effect but rather some kind of large edifice or matrix which we are condemned never to see in its entirity but only a bit at a time ( ). This would mean that we would feel as if something were moving when really nothing is moving other than our perception. Think of a reel of cinema film. The audience is permitted to see only one frame at a time but in truth the whole film is 'already there' and could, by a different kind of being, perhaps be seen 'all at once.' Indeed, we can all look at a reel of cinema film and see it all at once, though it won't look the same as it does when viewed in a cinema when the projection of one frame defines the present - and in so doing defines the past and future as well. Aha, that's an interesting thought... (to little me.)

Olly