How the Universe Will Freeze To Death And End Life As We Know It
THE UNIVERSE has been expanding since the dawn of time but if the second law of thermodynamics is an accurate prediction of its future, then the infinite expansion will inevitably be the end of life as we know.
Thermodynamics is the study of heat and energy and how they influence each other.
Its first law is energy cannot be created or destroyed, just moved and transformed into a different type.
But the second law of thermodynamics, however, has given scientists an insight into the universe’s lonely, cold inevitable end.
The universe has been expanding since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and is likely to continue to do so infinitely.
However, as the first law states, energy cannot be created which suggests heat and energy in the universe is in fact finite – meaning as the universe expands, it will cool, as it has been doing.
What is the second law of thermodynamics?
The simplest explanation is that heat will naturally transfer to a colder place when the two entities come into contact – however this can never be done with 100 per cent efficiency.
The property behind this transfer is called entropy which essentially dictates the order of molecules making up something.
For example, water molecules in an ice cube will have more order than the same amount of molecules in water as a gas.
This means the heat and energy of the molecules have become dispersed as they transfer from one state to another.
Now imagine this on a much larger scale. In fact the biggest scale possible, the entire universe.
If the first law is correct, then heat and energy is not created, which has led experts to the possible conclusion that the universe will end in a ‘heat death’.
A study from Boston University said: “[The second law] implies that the universe will end in a ‘heat death’ in which everything is at the same temperature.
“This is the ultimate level of disorder; if everything is at the same temperature, no work can be done, and all the energy will end up as the random motion of atoms and molecules.”
The Heat Death, otherwise known as The Big Freeze theory, suggests the universe will continue to expand, but rather than ripping apart, it will expand until it is nothing.
As it becomes bigger, matter and energy are evenly spread throughout the universe until temperature begins to decline until it reaches absolute zero.
Additionally, as energy, matter and raw materials are spread too far apart, there is not enough concentrated energy to create new stars.
The old stars will die out one by one, causing the universe to go pitch black as if nothing is there.
However, this is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Scientists, rather inaccurately, predict that the universe will end causing everything that we know to cease to exist anywhere between 2.8 billion and 22 billion years.
Editors comment:
Makes you wonder what the point of anything is if someday it will all end anyway (life as WE know it anyway). Perhaps the phrase “live for the moment” loosely applies here.
