Sci/Tech Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'

[The Helper]

Forget about the threat that mankind poses to the Earth: our activities may be shortening the life of the universe too.

The startling claim is made by a pair of American cosmologists investigating the consequences for the cosmos of quantum theory, the most successful theory we have. Over the past few years, cosmologists have taken this powerful theory of what happens at the level of subatomic particles and tried to extend it to understand the universe, since it began in the subatomic realm during the Big Bang.

But there is an odd feature of the theory that philosophers and scientists still argue about. In a nutshell, the theory suggests that we change things simply by looking at them and theorists have puzzled over the implications for years.

They often illustrate their concerns about what the theory means with mind-boggling experiments, notably Schrodinger's cat in which, thanks to a fancy experimental set up, the moggy is both alive and dead until someone decides to look, when it either carries on living, or dies. That is, by one interpretation (by another, the universe splits into two, one with a live cat and one with a dead one.)

New Scientist reports a worrying new variant as the cosmologists claim that astronomers may have accidentally nudged the universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'

Forget about the threat that mankind poses to the Earth: our activities may be shortening the life of the universe too. Telegraph

archinect.com

 

[XXXconanXXX]

So basically they're juxtaposing theories and experiments based purely on assumption to try and explain that because we viewed dark energy, it set in motion the universe's rapid expansion?

How absurd.

Schrodinger's cat wasn't meant to explain a subatomic particle's superposition of multiple states - it was meant to explain the strangeness of quantum mechanics and the mathematics needed to describe quantum states.

 

[Insane!]

New Scientist reports a worrying new variant as the cosmologists claim that astronomers may have accidentally nudged the universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

yeah we better just leave the universe alone
and leave that stuff alone

 

[Jindo]

Hmm, startling claim? I'm sure I'm not the only one who knew this, it's kinda obvious, how many animals do you see attempting to defy the laws of gravity and physics?

 

[Darkchaoself]

This for some reason i dont know, reminds of the year 2012

 

[phyrex1an]

Hmm, startling claim? I'm sure I'm not the only one who knew this, it's kinda obvious, how many animals do you see attempting to defy the laws of gravity and physics?

Dunno, only thing I know is that no one succeeded yet and no one never will. The only thing we can defy is the systems that we think are the laws of gravity and physics, and thus we have to change our laws to better match the real ones.

It's all dark magic, really dark magic.

That's the reason why I selected an education without physics, I rather do something where I can be sure that the answer is correct.

 

[Prometheus]

Based on the fact that the universe splits every time an option is presented, at any one time, the number of split-off must be insane.

 

[Aqua Dragon]

I Don't really believe this.
This goes on the theory that split idea whenever an observation was made... however, had that been true, an infinite number of universes would have opened since the first WORD was spoken. Inside of each those infinite universes, another infinte universes would be created, and another in those... and onward and onward.

 

[SFilip]

> universe splits every time an option is presented
Not proven. Probably never will be.

As interesting as it is, I fail to accept Schrödinger's cat, I simply don't think the universe exists because we're watching it. And no, I don't think it will cease to exist from that same reason either.

 

[phyrex1an]

The number of universes are only infinite if the number of chooses are. I suppose that the number of different universes will be equal to the number of different states an universe can be in, or at least approaching that number. The number of different states an universe can be in is just insane, with or without quantum theory.

 

[Idontknowyou]

The entire thing is completely subjective; the writer does not support his theories, nor are his theories based off of science, or common sence for that matter.

 

[TheDamien]

Complete drivel. Interfering with, say, an electron in order to measure it will result in a change of state or "wave function collapse". That is about as far as the so-called "observer effect" goes. This nonsense about shortening the life of the universe and cats being both alive and dead at the same time is utter lunacy, produced and packaged by "pop sci" magazines for the consumption of the mindless public.

Schrodingers cat was never meant to be taking seriously - people talk about it as if it would actually happen. This is precisely what Schrodinger was trying to avoid; in fact, the entire point of the thought experiment was to illustrate the absurd conclusion and how it might point to a flawed assumption.

 

[Newbwc3]

We people are so very small in such a vast universe, so i doubt we have little, if any effect on it.

Of course we could corrupt the world tho and cause it to die quicker.

 

[Somatic]

This theories are merely just part of what the Quantum Theory would be able to infer. But then again its possible since we, are merely a small part of this universe, does have its significant value in this giantic mass we are in. So it is up to time to show if we are, infact causing the down fall of this galaxy, or the worries are merely hoax.

 

[dunpealx4]

we need to tell this to Al Gore.

 

[Prometheus]

> universe splits every time an option is presented
Not proven. Probably never will be.

As interesting as it is, I fail to accept Schrödinger's cat, I simply don't think the universe exists because we're watching it. And no, I don't think it will cease to exist from that same reason either.

Sorry, shouldn't have said fact, ment based of the theory that a seperate timeline is created when ever an option presents it self.

 

[Wiseman_2]

Enough with the scare stories already! I really could care less! Why don't we go in search of something good for once?!? [insert long line of profanity here] governments all want to scare us into submission! I can't f***ing take it any longer!

I would pay for scientists to actually come up with soemthing and say, look! This thing will revolutionise humanity!
Something worthwhile!

Or is it too much to ask for? Is it just easier to ram scare stories down our throats?
Yeah so some may be true. But something that's based on a theory for god's sake!

 

[phyrex1an]

How could "life of universe is shorter now but we still don't know how long it will be, besides we got no proofs for our claims" be scary in any way?

 

[Wiseman_2]

It isn't. But it's the motives behind such stories. They think they can scare the average joe on the street. I could show this to a lot of people I know and 9 out of 10 would believe there was an immenant threat. Not everyone takes into account the details.

 

[Jindo]

Dunno, only thing I know is that no one succeeded yet and no one never will. The only thing we can defy is the systems that we think are the laws of gravity and physics, and thus we have to change our laws to better match the real ones.

I realised that we never actually defied these laws, so I worded my question:

"how many animals do you see attempting to defy the laws of gravity and physics?"

Humans are the only species doing anything that could potentially (easily?) kill the planet, whilst pretty much everything else lives normally or tries to cope with the changes we make >_<.