(Untitled)

[ericisalive]

Anyone out there who knows much about physics know whether the matter/energy farthest from the center of the universe will be the first to be consumed by entropy, vie/versa, or in splotches all over the place... got this little theory/story nuggest but not clear enough on the astrophysics to play with it yet...

Comments

[ungarsfragile]

Actually, its more cosmology than astrophysics, and I have some background in such matters.. Going out for breakfast, but I'll get back to you soon.

[spaceoperadiva]

I recommend The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. If your reading time is as limited as mine is, I apologize for adding to the pile, but I couldn't resist. :-P

[ericisalive]

Been wanting to read this book forever :) Will have to get around to it.

Re: consumed by entropy

[wolfieboy]

I'm not sure what you mean by "consumed by entropy". Entropy describes a system rather than a part of the system.

Re: consumed by entropy

[ericisalive]

Let me explain what I'm thinking and maybe it will be more clear what I'm trying to ask...

Current theory, as I understand it, is that the universe will continue expanding outward and while this happens the matter in the universe will be gradually burned up or otherwise converted into the lowest form of energy which is I believe heat. Heat dissipates throughout the system, and in a system as large as the universe that dissipation equals a very low level of heat almost undifferentiated from absolute zero.

However, spacetime is curved around matter, so that the "boundaries" of the universe are limited by the position of the matter within it. My thought was that if the matter at the furthest from center was being "burned up" first, the "boundary" would gradually shrink and the heat would have less space to dissipate to.

Eventually, as the last of the matter was converted to heat, all the heat in the entire universe would be contained in one infinitely small point... New Big Bang!

Re: consumed by entropy

[wolfieboy]

Well, actually, they're not completely sure if it will spread out forever or if the mass of the universe will eventually lead to a contraction and another big bang.

Matter doesn't get burned up. What happens is that the heat in the universe gets averaged out in a manner similar to how a cold water bottle will become room temperature without the room get appreciably cooler.

As for the dissipation temperature, that is about 3° Kelvin; that is about 3 degrees above absolute zero. And that's just the average of all the heat in the universe. None of this would cause a New Big Bang. That would create energy where there wasn't energy before, violating the second law of thermodynamics...