The last stars will burn out in 120 trillion years
We think. We still haven't solved things like the dark matter/energy problem. The answer to that alone could drastically change what we estimate will happen in the distant future.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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Stuff only burns for so long. We might learn more about the geometry of space and that there is more out there at greater distances where maybe even other Big bangs are possible but there is a certain maximum amount of time that a star can exist.
Over the time scales of the life of a proton the maximum variability in the amount of time a star can burn is a rounding error against the scale of numbers needed to express the amount of time it takes for hawking radiation to reduce black holes to ultra long wavelengths of infrared radiation.
Yes, but we don't have proof that universe can't generate new matter. For all we know there is a mechanism in universe not yet observed that can create new matter out of little vacuum and more stars will keep forming.
So technically all we can say is, it's likely that stars will die out in 1000 trillion years.
Yes, but we don’t have proof that universe can’t generate new matter.
True... we also don't have proof there isn't a tea pot orbiting our Sun since it's creation, either.
However, there's also a complete lack of evidence of it.
You cannot prove a negative. The evidence says no new matter can be created. No evidence that new matter gets created. Therefore, we work on the model of no new matter creation.
On these scales, the accuracy of our observations should reduce our confidence though. It doesn't make sense to confidently say that, in 200 trillion years there will be no stars, because our observations of the rate of new matter creation (approximately zero) have a margin of error which allows for there to still be some
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Also see Dyson's Eternal Intelligence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson%27s_eternal_intelligence
Basically, if you assume it's possible to upload our intelligence to a computer and run it, then you can keep the energy going to run it for a very, very long time. Well past the heat death of the rest of the universe. It depends on running things in an on and off state to conserve energy for trillions of years. Subjectively, the people in there wouldn't notice that and would simply see their active lifespans go for trillions of years. It's not clear what the limit would actually be.
It's something like Zeno's Paradox. You cut things in half each cycle, but never quite get to zero.
I cannot express in words just how much I do not want my consciousness to persist, trapped, for trillions of years of darkness. That would be unimaginable hell.
What if there's cookies?
I'd delete them at the end of session, like any lemming would.
For there to be cookies one must assume an eternal cookie banner / pop up telling you this site uses cookies.
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with only a finite initial store of energy, only a finite number of thoughts can ever be processed. This "thermal death" of the universe prevents the infinite hibernation and computation trick from working, thus rendering Dyson's eternal intelligence scenario impossible in a universe with a positive cosmological constant.
My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
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Thus began the Age of Fire. But soon the flames will fade and only Dark will remain.
This is the main reason why, if you come across a genie in a lamp, you should probably not wish for immortality. You're gonna be hellafuckin bored for a loooooooong time.
I don't want to imagine the level of procrastination I would have if I were immortal.
I would wish for a life that ends when I want it to. Like the numenoreans had in LoTR
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Tangentially related great sci-fi short story: “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html
Probably my favorite short story. This is another one of my favorites, definitely more obscure:
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Does thinking about the long dark make anyone else feel like they are going to vomit?
The chances of me living long enough to actually be effected by it are so slim that I'm completely unconcerned about it.
And if you could live so long it would invalidate basically everything we know of physics. So the long dark wouldn't actually come.
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We're doing a pretty bang up job of making that one second as stupid and painful as possible.
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That's neat, stars are just the sparks after the big bang, and "soon" that energy will be gone. Even with all the bad shit happening, it makes me happy to be alive in this beautifully short window of time in the universe, even if our little dust speck circling a spark is a bit fucked up sometimes
Want to live forever? Tough. Cos even if you could stop your body from growing old and dying, the planet is going to get too warm and nothing will be able to live on it. Then the sun will expand and destroy the planet. But even if you could leave the planet, theres no where close by to get too that wont have the same problems later on. But even if you could get to another solar system, same thing happens again. But then eventually the universe runs out of hydrogen and its fucked. Or the universe gets spread too thin, and its fucked. Or some fucking quantum field takes a shit, and creates a bubble of true vacuum that expands at the speed of light and everything's fucked.
Im fucked, youre fucked, the earth is fucked, the solar system is fucked, the galaxy is fucked, the local cluster is fucked, its all just fucked. One way or another. At some point nothing exists except an endless absence of anything. Not even nothing will exist...
And people say there are no good arguments for weekly drug fuelled sex orgies...
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coulda said trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion and saved us a little time
we still have 120 trillion years left. we can spare the time for a few extra words
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What happens after the 10^106 years of black holes?
The black holes evaporate eventually.
After that, depends on who you ask. Most physicists would say something like “as close to nothing as possible”. Penrose would say at a certain point when nothing can interact with anything else, distance loses meaning, which makes the universe and a singularity equivalent, so then things restart.
Not sure about the "restart" bit.
If it’s mathematically equivalent to the starting conditions of our universe, why would it behave differently?
I don't think you can argue that it's mathematically equivalent. Just because space and time become so spread that they are effectively meaningless is not the same as them having not meaningfully existed and then existing. Neither can you really say that since any baryons that have not decayed are so far apart none of them interact that they behave like the concentration of all matter in the known universe. At those scales of time I'm not even sure that there are any left.
It's like arguing that one tiny piece of something in one place is the same as all the matter and all of space and time being in one place: it's I guess analogous but not equivalent. I will of course caveat and say that my undergrad physics degree did not cover end of the universe timelines lol. Kurzgesagt does have a video though.
The cyclical universe approach as I understand it is predicated on an eventual big crunch which I don't think is being argued anymore.
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Honestly, this factoid is the closest thing to a real Total Perspective Vortex that I’ve ever felt.
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Anthropic Principle moment
Well then I'm just going to enjoy the absolute fuck out of Hawking radiation and Mr pouty pants can sulk for 10^elebenty eons.
I just had a moment of what is everything
I don't know how to explain it but from nothing to something to nothing again but no why
The 'why' is us.
Without consciousness in the universe, there might as well not be a universe.
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