Re: virus: Does God really exist/Universe

John Porter (jporter@btg.com)
Wed, 28 Aug 1996 10:46:18 -0400


jonesr@gatwick.geco-prakla.slb.com wrote:
> >Note that entropy would still advance, having as one consequence
> >the effect that the state of the universe would converge to a single,
> >constant temperture... (i.e., all the stars would eventually burn out).
>
> If the temperature of the universe converges to a constant temperature, won't
> it vary depending on the size of it. After all, a compressed gas is much hotter
> than a gas at ordinary atmospheric pressure, and yet the energy contained
> within the system is the same. Therefore, if the universe is constantly
> changing shape and size, the temperature will never level out at a constant
> value.
>
> I would have to say though, that although stars do burn out, when a star dies
> it releases all of the gasses that remain, and these go on to make up other
> stars. [...] So it would be true to say
> that eventually all stars are going to burn out, but others will take their
> place.

To say "all the stars would eventually burn out" is a semantic stumbling block,
apparently. There will come a time -- eventually -- when stars no longer form
from the gasses remaining from previous stars [so the theory goes].
I suggest that the most important point is that none of this will happen
suddenly, even on a cosmic time scale. The stars that will form from
interstellar dust and gasses will be ever smaller and cooler; and eventually
will fail to go thermonuclear.

It is also worth noting how matter changes state at temperatures very close
to absolute zero. In this state, called a Bose-Einstein Condensate, the
"particles" in an atom become very diffuse, ie. much less localized, and in
fact much less disinct, to the point that there can not be said to be a
proton and an electon in the hydrogen atom, but simply, a hydrogen atom in
the Bose-Einstein state. Presumably, at the "end" of the universe, all
matter has reached this state, and no further diffusion or cooling is
possible. (This is, of course, assuming an open universe.)

(
Short description of Bose-Einstein Condensation:
http://128.178.177.16/ene/ene_aug95_walraven_text.html#gen1

The Bose-Einstein Condensation Homepage:
http://amo.phy.gasou.edu/bec.html/
)

-- 
John Porter
jporter@btg.com