Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back from 1 to 10+ pages to re-sync the thread and this will then show the latest posts. Thanks, Mike.
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Entropy - does it bother you?

2»

Comments

  • #52
    nj27
    Registered Users Posts: 467 ✭✭nj27


    Don't worry, you might already be a Boltzmann brain.


  • #53
    Ipso
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    Was it big and was it a bang?


  • #54
    cosanostra
    Registered Users Posts: 881 ✭✭✭cosanostra


    JasonStatham wrote: »
    I'd love to know what created the Universe or what it's sitting in. Like, what's at the boundary of the universe.

    It was once explained to me that imagine we are inside an ever expanding balloon however there's nothing outside the balloon. The big mind f*ck is our inability to understand nothingness how can there be nothing or if its infinite the only way we can picture it is with an end its just something our brains cant visualise


  • #55
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Life itself consists of complex self-sustaining systems, highly organised from the smallest scales up, which are capable of resisting entropy for a finite time period, powered ultimately by energy from the sun (mostly) and the small fraction of matter on the planet at any moment capable of being assimilated into the organism from it's environment. It is the nature of existence that everything 'wants' to become as disordered as possible. We are facing a major crisis into the future regarding energy, as our species has been relying on a one-off boon of fossil fuels which took forever to accumulate but which we will have used up in centuries. Energy, space and raw materials are of the most fundamental importance for our species in the eternal battle against entropy but it will be too late before we realise there will never be a better source of energy than fossil fuels and that we should have done whatever was necessary as a species to ration them out longer.

    With regard to the heat death of the universe and the eternity that is theorized to be due to follow the death of the stars; I once read that something like 98 percent (high nineties anyway) of all stars that will ever form have already existed or exist. This to me is a satisfying conclusion when you consider how spookily young the universe seems to be in comparison with the grotesquely immense timescales that are discussed in relation to the situation in far future of the universe. It seems life is something that can only exist in the first tens of billions of years of the universe at best, which is a blink in comparison with the near-eternity that seems to lie beyond that.


  • #56
    The Tetrarch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,092 ✭✭✭The Tetrarch


    y0ssar1an22 wrote: »
    it is a bit of a mind ****. like what was there before the big bang? it cant be nothing!
    I'll put your mind at rest.
    Someone asked "What does this button do?"
    Before that, I'm not sure.


  • #57
    Kerry4Gold
    Registered Users Posts: 4 ✭Kerry4Gold


    take everything wrote: »
    For example why not have colour or temperature as another dimension as compelling as spatial dimensions.

    Well my mind has been successfully blown. I've never considered looking at it this way, is there a name for this way of thinking about the problem, or is this an original perspective?


  • #58
    take everything
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,807 ✭✭✭take everything


    Kerry4Gold wrote: »
    Well my mind has been successfully blown. I've never considered looking at it this way, is there a name for this way of thinking about the problem, or is this an original perspective?

    Nah, not original.

    Have a look at something like Linear algebra, a maths subject that deals with spaces of dimensions that can be anything, not just spatial.

    So for example 3 spatial dimensions, one time, one colour, one temperature say. Or anything really.

    And then you can describe states of a physical system in terms of say these 6 parameters (I'm just picking any parameters).

    I suppose my relegation of spatial dimension might be controversial but ultimately these are all things that we perceive (heat, colour, direction, time) so I'm compelled to think these things they all have in common is an observer.

    They don't really exist in any meaningful way arguably if there's no observer.

    A question I always have is what exactly is rotation through space or an angle. Interestingly angles are measured in radians which are distance/distance (so dimensionless), something I always puzzle about. Distance has a dimension but angles don't. The concept of spatial dimension fascinates me.

    Why do we observe three dimensions.
    Etc etc.


  • #59
    jimgoose
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,180 ✭✭✭✭jimgoose


    We sail through endless skies
    Stars shine like eyes
    The black night sighs
    The moon in silver trees
    Falls down in tears
    Light of the night
    The earth, a purple blaze
    Of sapphire haze
    In orbit always

    -- Osbourne/Butler/Iommi/Ward


  • #60
    Quantum Erasure
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,782 ✭✭✭Quantum Erasure


    Ipso wrote: »
    Was it big and was it a bang?

    Quite the opposite in fact, although I suppose everything is relative, it was bigger and bangier than what was there before....


  • Advertisement
  • #61
    kowloon
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,517 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    Meh, vaccum decay or someone spilling their coffee on the server that runs reality V2.0 might end us all tomorrow. The important thing to remember is you're tiny and insignificant in an uncaring universe and you can murder and pillage as much as your heart desires without any fear of consequence beyond death.

    I'm feeling very nihilistic because I fcuked up putting a screen protector on a new tablet and now there's bubbles. Literally the worst thing ever to happen ever.


  • #62
    Bogwoppit
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,802 ✭✭✭Bogwoppit


    Time makes me uncomfortable when I really think about it.

    Also, am I me? And if so, how am I me?

    Another one; if the universe is infinite then we should have infinite stars, if that’s the case then the night sky should be total starlight, no gaps, but it isn’t. Never had an answer to that and I don’t like it.


  • #63
    kowloon
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,517 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    Flash Photography wrote: »
    Treat life as a video game, it's pointless really with great opportunity to have fun.

    A terrible game where task manager keeps popping to the front and obscuring a vital cut-scene that might help you understand wtf is going on. :D


  • #64
    Upforthematch
    Registered Users Posts: 1,328 ✭✭✭Upforthematch


    kowloon wrote: »
    A terrible game where task manager keeps popping to the front and obscuring a vital cut-scene that might help you understand wtf is going on. :D

    But do you really think we don't know wtf is going on?

    If anything we know all too much about what's going on, we just don't like it for some reason?


  • #65
    NickNickleby
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,826 ✭✭✭NickNickleby


    When I was a child, one of the notions I had was this:

    When I die and go to heaven, it'll be great because all the mysteries of the Universe will be revealed to me. That became, when I die and become part of the , eh.., oneness, then all the secrets of the Universe will be revealed to me.

    I'm still hoping I'm right. :D - probably because trying to read A Brief History of Time, and The Universe in a Nutshell gave me awful headaches:pac::pac:

    Obviously sensing my frustration, Mr Hawking wrote a book called The Universe for Dummies, but he actually titled it Brief Answers to the Big Questions. Definitely worth a read.


Advertisement