Three Ways to Destroy the Universe
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0:02 - 0:04One day the universe will die.
-
0:04 - 0:09But why? And how? And will the universe
be dead forever? -
0:09 - 0:11And how do we know that?
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0:11 - 0:14First of all, the universe is expanding.
-
0:14 - 0:17And not only that, the rate of
its expansion is accelerating. -
0:18 - 0:20The reason: dark energy.
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0:20 - 0:25Dark energy is a strange phenomenon that
scientists believe permeates the universe. -
0:25 - 0:30Until 1998 we thought that the universe
must work a bit like -
0:30 - 0:31a ball that you throw into the sky.
-
0:32 - 0:35The ball moves up, but at some point
it has to come down again. -
0:36 - 0:39But the expansion of the universe
is actually speeding up. -
0:40 - 0:43That’s like throwing a ball up
and watching it fly away -
0:43 - 0:45faster and faster and faster.
-
0:45 - 0:47Where is this acceleration coming from?
-
0:48 - 0:52Well, we don’t know, but
we call it “dark energy”. -
0:53 - 0:56Einstein thought of it first and
then decided it was stupid. -
0:57 - 1:00Now, astrophysicists have
decided it is plausible. -
1:01 - 1:05Trouble is, this is all very theoretical,
and we don’t actually know -
1:05 - 1:07what the properties of dark energy are.
-
1:07 - 1:11But there are various theories and they
lead us to three scenarios -
1:11 - 1:13for the end of the universe.
-
1:20 - 1:21One: the Big Rip.
-
1:23 - 1:25Since its birth, the universe
has been expanding. -
1:26 - 1:29For unknown reasons new spaces
created everywhere equally. -
1:29 - 1:33The space between galaxies expands,
so they move apart. -
1:34 - 1:38The space inside galaxies also expands,
but here, gravity is strong enough -
1:38 - 1:40to keep them together.
-
1:40 - 1:44In the Big Rip scenario, the expansion
accelerates up to a point where -
1:44 - 1:49space expands so fast that gravity
can’t compensate for this effect anymore. -
1:49 - 1:51The result is a Big Rip.
-
1:52 - 1:55At first, only large structures like
galaxies are torn apart, -
1:55 - 1:59since space between the single objects
expands very fast. -
1:59 - 2:03Next, big bodies like black holes,
stars, and planets die. -
2:03 - 2:06Their gravity isn’t strong enough to keep
them together, -
2:06 - 2:08so they dissolve into their components.
-
2:09 - 2:12In the end, space would expand
faster than the speed of light. -
2:13 - 2:16Atoms would now be affected,
and they would just disband. -
2:17 - 2:21Once space is expanding faster than light,
no particle in the universe can interact -
2:21 - 2:23with any other particle anymore.
-
2:24 - 2:28The universe would dissolve into countless
lonely particles that won’t be able to -
2:28 - 2:32touch anything else in a strange,
timeless universe. -
2:33 - 2:36Hmm, and you thought you felt lonely!
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2:37 - 2:40Two: Heat death or a Big Freeze.
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2:41 - 2:44In a nutshell, the difference between
the Big Rip and heat death is that -
2:44 - 2:48in a heat death scenario matter stays
intact and is converted -
2:48 - 2:52over an incredibly long but finite period
of time into radiation, -
2:52 - 2:54while the universe expands forever.
-
2:54 - 2:57But how does this work?
Let’s talk about entropy. -
2:58 - 3:01Every system tends towards the
state of highest entropy, -
3:01 - 3:04like when we have a latte macchiato.
-
3:04 - 3:08Initially, it has different regions, but
over time, they will -
3:08 - 3:10cool down and disintegrate,
until it’s uniform. -
3:11 - 3:13And this also applies to the universe.
-
3:14 - 3:16So, while the universe gets
bigger and bigger, -
3:16 - 3:19matters slowly decays and spreads out.
-
3:20 - 3:25At some point, after lots of generations
of stars, all the gas clouds necessary -
3:25 - 3:30to form stars will be exhausted,
so the universe will turn dark. -
3:31 - 3:32The remaining suns will die;
-
3:33 - 3:38black holes will slowly degenerate
and evaporate over trillions of years -
3:38 - 3:41due to what’s known as Hawking radiation.
-
3:42 - 3:47When this process is complete, only a
dilute gas of photons and light particles -
3:47 - 3:50remains, until even this decays.
-
3:51 - 3:54All activity in the universe ceases
at this point; -
3:54 - 3:59entropy is at its maximum and
the universe is dead forever. -
4:00 - 4:03Unless… theoretically, it might
be possible -
4:03 - 4:05that after an incredibly
long amount of time, -
4:05 - 4:10there might be a spontaneous entropy
decrease as a result of something called -
4:10 - 4:13“quantum tunneling”, leading to
a new Big Bang. -
4:15 - 4:18Three: Big Crunch and Big Bounce.
-
4:18 - 4:21This is the most uplifting scenario.
-
4:21 - 4:26If there is less dark energy than we think
or it decreases over time, gravity will be -
4:26 - 4:28the dominating force in the
universe one day. -
4:28 - 4:31In a few trillion years, the rate of
expansion of the universe -
4:31 - 4:33will slow down and stop.
-
4:33 - 4:35After that, it reverses.
-
4:35 - 4:39Galaxies will race at each other,
merging as the universe becomes -
4:39 - 4:40smaller and smaller.
-
4:40 - 4:44Since a smaller universe also means
a hotter universe, temperatures rise -
4:44 - 4:45everywhere all at once.
-
4:46 - 4:49One hundred thousand years before the Big
Crunch, background radiation would be -
4:49 - 4:52hotter than the surfaces of the
most stars, which means that -
4:52 - 4:54they would be cooked from the outside.
-
4:55 - 4:58Minutes before the Big Crunch happens,
atom cores are ripped apart, -
4:58 - 5:00before supermassive black holes
devour everything. -
5:01 - 5:05Finally, all black holes would emerge into
a supermassive mega-black hole -
5:05 - 5:08that contains the entire
mass of the universe, -
5:08 - 5:11and in the last moment before
the Big Crunch -
5:11 - 5:14it would devour the universe,
including itself. -
5:15 - 5:18The Big Bounce theory states that this
has happened a lot of times -
5:18 - 5:21and that the universe goes through
an infinite cycle of -
5:21 - 5:22expansion and contraction.
-
5:23 - 5:25Well, wouldn’t that be nice?
-
5:25 - 5:28So what will actually happen to
the universe in the end? -
5:28 - 5:33At the moment, heat death seems the most
likely, but we at Kurzgesagt hope that -
5:33 - 5:38this “dead forever” stuff is wrong and the
universe will start over and over again. -
5:39 - 5:42We don't know for sure either way, so
let’s just assume -
5:42 - 5:44the most uplifting theory is true.
-
5:48 - 5:51By the way, we have a Twitter account.
- Title:
- Three Ways to Destroy the Universe
- Description:
-
How will the Universe die?
Everybody dies. The universe too? Well, probably. What are the current theories about the end of everything? And how creepy exactly are these theories? (Spoiler: very creepy). But there might be hope...
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https://twitter.com/Kurz_GesagtNext Video: March 3rd. Topic: The Big Bang (which concludes our mini series about the universe)
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Will the Universe Die?
Three Ways to Destroy the Universe
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 06:17
Valentine Anderson edited English subtitles for Three Ways to Destroy the Universe | ||
Nicole Ja edited English subtitles for Three Ways to Destroy the Universe | ||
Nicole Ja edited English subtitles for Three Ways to Destroy the Universe | ||
Nicole Ja edited English subtitles for Three Ways to Destroy the Universe | ||
Nicole Ja edited English subtitles for Three Ways to Destroy the Universe | ||
Nicole Ja edited English subtitles for Three Ways to Destroy the Universe | ||
Nicole Ja edited English subtitles for Three Ways to Destroy the Universe | ||
Nicole Ja edited English subtitles for Three Ways to Destroy the Universe |