I think Asimov
was more "let there be light" than "the stars were going out".
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were are going out. Don't worry, though: the heat death of the universe is still hundreds of trillions of years away. That's the conclusion of work announced by the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, which has looked at 200,000 "nearby" galaxies across 21 wavelengths between the …
Its the year of Linux on the desktop.
Microsoft writes a browser which shows webpages correctly.
XP market share falls below 10%.
A MP submits an honest expenses claim.
Apple comes up with an idea of its own.
Labour win their first election since 2005.
Liverpool win the Premiership title.
SPOILER (as if it hasn't been out for a while, or given away in the article)! From what I remember of the story, the monks had narrowed down the possibilities of the one true name to 9 billion (using a phonetic alphabet of their own devising) and had the software engineer write them something to go through all the possibilities one by one. Using a computer was much faster than their manual method and by the time he was leaving the monastery, it had found the right one and the stars had started to go out...
Very reminiscent of the "controversial" proof of the four-colour theorem in the ... 1970s?
That might be a bit exaggerated, but it is instructive to compare, say, the style of Asimov's "Nightfall" with that of Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God", since they have generic1 similarities. "Nightfall" is unquestionably more hyperbolic.
Personally, I tend to enjoy Asimov's work more than Clarke's - particularly their novels. But there's no doubt Clarke has the lighter touch.
1That is, of the same genre. They're both SF short stories of similar length, with third-party narration, Aristotelian unity, etc; and they have certain similarity of theme.
You compare galaxies at different distances - age is proportional to distance. For example, the Andromeda galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away (at that distance you don't really have to worry about the expansion of the universe to complicate matters) so we're seeing it as it was about 2.5 million years ago, giving us a measurement for that time. Other galaxies, at different distances, give you measurements for different times (but the further away you look, the more that expansion comes in to play). Two billion years isn't really very far anyway.
Just hypothetically if we possessed the technology to create fusion reactions to form new stars could we postpone the heat death of the universe?
Or would the energy we need to create these reactions just drain it faster?
Slightly shorter term, could the same technology create a new sun in our solar system? What size object would be needed to create a similar sized sun a similar distance from Earth? E.g. if we sacrifice Pluto as 'kindling' for our new sun would it be bigger than Sol is now?
Yeah, slow day at work.
Just hypothetically if we possessed the technology to create fusion reactions to form new stars could we postpone the heat death of the universe?
No. To perform "work" you need an energy differential. Heat death is when the energy is the same across the entire Universe. You couldn't avoid heat death by building a reactor as you wouldn't be able to get the energy to build the reactor.
Slightly shorter term, could the same technology create a new sun in our solar system? What size object would be needed to create a similar sized sun a similar distance from Earth? E.g. if we sacrifice Pluto as 'kindling' for our new sun would it be bigger than Sol is now?
According to hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/KellyMaurelus.shtml, you need something about 80 times bigger than Jupiter to form a star. And that's assuming the proto-star has the right composition for nuclear fusion. Main sequence stars, such as Sol, "burn" Hydrogen to form Helium, etc. Pluto is a rocky planet, so not much Hydrogen to burn.
So not even lighting up Jupiter would do the trick.
Ordinary scientists content themselves with vandalising comets, or smashing small ummanned probes into unsuspecting planets. But you were contemplating setting fire to en entire planet, just to put off time being called.
Do you have a long haired white cat? And are you recruiting henchmen? I'm a good henchman, so long as the JD doesn't include "being eaten by piranhas for trivial mistakes"
Re Sacrificing Pluto: the mass of Sol is a smidge under 2x10^38 kg and the mass of Pluto is about 1.3x10^22 kg so in terms of mass Sol equals about 1.5x10^16 Plutos. Adding one more isn't going to make any difference.
Fwiw, Sol accounts for about 99.8% of the entire Solar System by mass.
Ah. Must be the alignment.
What's wrong?
Well, I don't know ! I mean it can't be the lens. I was looking at Orion, the constellation of Orion. Take a look and tell me, what can you see?
Where?
Well up there, of course! In the sky!
I can't see anything. It's just... black.
I mean it's working! The telescope is working.
Well, maybe it's clouds.
There's no clouds.
Well there must be.
There's not! It was there. An entire constellation. Look. Look there! They're going out. Oh my God, Donna. The stars are going out.
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Only another fifty or hundred trillion years left? Honestly, what's the point? I think I'll stay in bed today.
"The first ten million years were the worst. And the second ten million: they were the worst, too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that, I went into a bit of a decline."