Is there any hope?...

[alexGERMAN]

Is there any hope for mans continued existance?
Can we possibly get off this planet, out of this galaxy, and eventually out of this universe before the predicted collapse of the whole conglomaration?

There is so many factors against our survival, disease, blowing ourselves up, metors crashing into us, the ozone layer meting, destruction by massive storms, getting sucked into black holes, the universe eventually collapsing on itself. And if we ever got advanced enough to build some kind of ships that could transport us out of this universe into another, the laws of physics, and mathematics that apply here probally wont apply there and we could just remove ourselves from existance like a deleted file

I hope im making sence to someone, this is a topic that plauges me because I really dont like thinking about the end of mankind if there is any possibility we may survive

i put this under S&T because thats all ( i believe) thats going to save us

[Castle]

Quote by: alexGERMAN Is there any hope for mans continued existance? Can we possibly get off this planet, out of this galaxy, and eventually out of this universe before the predicted collapse of the whole conglomaration?

Sure. Except for the universe bit. Physically impossible, you know.

Quote by: alexGERMAN disease

Which we've been coping with for hundreds of thousands of years, and which has been getting easier to deal with, not harder

Quote by: alexGERMAN blowing ourselves up

Now that one's been getting more likely, I admit. Just have to rely on the instincts of self-preservation, I suppose.

Quote by: alexGERMAN metors crashing into us

Infinitesmially unlikely.

Quote by: alexGERMAN the ozone layer meting

A slow process that we should have enough time to deal with

Quote by: alexGERMAN destruction by massive storms, getting sucked into black holes

Uh...sure. Wasn't aware that those were pressing threats or anything.

Quote by: alexGERMAN the universe eventually collapsing on itself.

Remind me a couple trillion years down the road, and I'll start to worry.

Quote by: alexGERMAN And if we ever got advanced enough to build some kind of ships that could transport us out of this universe into another, the laws of physics, and mathematics that apply here probally wont apply there and we could just remove ourselves from existance like a deleted file

Idle speculation with no support. Everywhere we've seen (and that's a fair amount), the laws of physics have remained constant. There's no reason to suppose anywhere else will be any different.

i put this under S&T because thats all ( i believe) thats going to save us

Agreed. Except from the 'blowing ourselves up' part..

[alexGERMAN]

Quote by: Castle Idle speculation with no support. Everywhere we've seen (and that's a fair amount), the laws of physics have remained constant. There's no reason to suppose anywhere else will be any different.

Well this is the way i look at it (apologize for lack of explanation) If you take an american dollar to a shop in america, its going to fetch whatever is tagged $1.00 (im not going into sales tax) Its pretty much garanteed to get you something worth $1.00, but if you take that dollar to russia, its worthless, and its existance is pointless, it may as well not exist(unless your black market dealer prefers payment in american currancy)(<off topic) So what im saying is, the laws of our universe, such as gravity, and 1+1=2 may not apply in ANOTHER universe, and there is no evidence to support that they do. I dont know if there is even any proof of other universes out there or if we are infact part of a multiverse. in a sence the universe is like a program, it runs certain things a certain way, so what im saying is, what if our universe is like Windows and another universe is like Macintosh, programs that run on Windows dont run on Macs and likewise laws in our universe dont nessesarily have to apply in another universe

[Castle]

Quote by: alexGERMAN if you take that dollar to russia, its worthless, and its existance is pointless, it may as well not exist

Umm...perhaps you've heard of currency exchange?

Quote by: alexGERMAN So what im saying is, the laws of our universe, such as gravity, and 1+1=2 may not apply in ANOTHER universe

Which is utterly irrelevent, because it's physically impossible to get there. And "1+1=2" isn't a "law of our universe", it's a definition.

Quote by: alexGERMAN there is no evidence to support that they do

Lots of things might be the case. I see no reason to worry about them until there's some plausible evidence for it.

[alexGERMAN]

Quote by: Castle Umm...perhaps you've heard of currency exchange?.

yes i have, point please

Quote by: Castle Which is utterly irrelevent, because it's physically impossible to get there.

says who? you? where is your degree on the subject or the source of your oppinion

Quote by: Castle Lots of things might be the case. I see no reason to worry about them until there's some plausible evidence for it

Some of us hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Not worrying about a problem as you say, or trying to find some solution for possible future problems as i would say, is completly foolish. Look at the problem of global warming. It may be caused by man, or it may be a natural occurance of nature, but its pretty hard to deny that the 'globe' is 'warming' and this presents serious problems, but 99% of the worlds population either doest car, doesnt awknowledge it, is doing nothing about it, or all an assortment of these.

Apathy is hardly the route I want to take when the survival of our species is what is under the microscope

[Castle]

Quote by: alexGERMAN yes i have, point please

U.S. dollars are not worthless in Russia. You can change them into Russian currency.

Quote by: alexGERMAN says who?

Einstein, I believe. Speed of light as an absolute maximum and all that.

Quote by: alexGERMAN Some of us hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Not worrying about a problem as you say, or trying to find some solution for possible future problems as i would say, is completly foolish.

Because there's such a dearth of problems to worry about right now. And how do you suggest we prepare for alternate-reality-physics-changes, anyway?

Quote by: alexGERMAN Apathy is hardly the route I want to take when the survival of our species is what is under the microscope

You are aware that you're talking about humanity's exploration of alternate universes here, right?

[alexGERMAN]

yeah, i am aware of that :)

Good points you raise, speed of light and all that. Getting past the speed of light is also supposed to be the key to time travel as well.

Your right, there is enough problems now that we dont have to worry about worrying about others for a few millions years to come. However, id would like to know if we stood a chance of ever getting out of this bubble before i die, and event which will probally be less than a few million years. Not because it matters to me personally, but becasue it matters to humanity

[Stewbert]

Well, I kinda got lost while reading your current debate. However, theres a theory that the earth will eventually be eaten up by the Sun. As you know, the Sun's gravitational forces cause the earth to orbit about it, slowly getting closer. Like a paper orbiting a drain, the Earth will eventually be sucked in.

Unless we colonize another planet (as suggested by Hawking), we don't have much of a chance of surviving on this planet when it gets too close to the Sun.

Well, this theory makes sense but I haven't exactly researched it so I'm not going to argue the science of it. Scientists say this will happen in 100 billion zillion (whatever, don't remember) years.

I guess nuclear weapons, global warming, etc may have effect but remember that planets don't last forever, making it a huge challenge for mankind

[gallo]

Quote by: Stewbert However, theres a theory that the earth will eventually be eaten up by the Sun.

That's true, but not for the reasons you state.

Quote by: Stewbert As you know, the Sun's gravitational forces cause the earth to orbit about it, slowly getting closer. Like a paper orbiting a drain, the Earth will eventually be sucked in.

Nope. The degradation of the earth's orbit isn't fast enough to cause it to fall into the sun in the time the sun has left. The sun is about half way through it's life at 4.5 billion years. In another 4.5 to 5 billion years the sun will run out of hydrogen in its core. The sun isn't large enough to fuse the helium, so as the energy production at the core stops, the remaining helium contracts. The contraction causes the outer shells to also contract to the point that fusion of hydrogen outside the core is increased, which in turn causes the outer layers to heat up which expands the outer layers. The additional heating (and therefore brightness) is more than offset by the expansion and the sun would appear red (if anyone were there to see it) and become a red giant. The fusion in the outer shells will cause the sun to expand until it is the roughly the size of the orbit of earth. That's where the earth being eaten by the sun idea comes from. However, as time passes, the process of fusion is making the sun less massive and thus reducing its gravity. As a result, the orbit of earth will become larger, not smaller. It may grow enough that the earth (a mere cinder by that time) will not be consumed by the sun and will eventually become a dead rock orbiting a brown dwarf.

[alexGERMAN]

intresting concept

[Nathan Struth]

I take nuclear war. There is still hope, become a politician, try to ban nuclear weapons. That's all I have to say. Everyone will shun you...they're all gonna laugh at you...It's a sad thing apathy. I've cried many times viewing that the world doesn't really care about things. Even education doesn't spark interest.

Darfur is all talk and no walk. Global warming is all talk and no current caring solution. Everyone still drives cars, AL Gore flew a jet plane to get places, Al Gore drove in an SUV to get to his home. He has good points, but he's just such a hippocritical moron. He represents graphs (An inconveniant truth) showing time going backwards and having two things on the X-Axis for one parabola of a Y-Axis. Imagine a logarithmic wave going straight up and then curving to the left and going more left on a time axis.

The world will be gone soon, best for me to study mind control and stop it before it happens which is why I'm becoming a physicist.

[Stewbert]

To answer the question stated in the opening paragraph, the Earth will be a perfect human habitat forever. For whatever reasons, our planet will degrade. Its out of our hands. We can slow this process down and prevent it as much as we can but our planet won't last forever. The Sun won't last forever either.

[samsara15]

It's a lot more likely that population pressure or the environment will do us in within a few hundred or thousand years. The speed of light, the huge distances between stars, and the paucity of inhabitable planets rather limits what we can expect from space travel. Colonization of other worlds might not be an option. However, I wouldn't worry too much about the end of the universe or the Earth being swallowed by the Sun, those events are too far in the future.

[Nathan Struth]

Agreed

[Osborn F Enready]

Hope lies in the value of liberty, and education.

If the sheeple grasp it, things could change.

If not, the whole flock is going of the cliff, and if I get dragged down with the flock I am making damn sure the sheperd comes along for the ride.

[ericsp23]

In the short term the biggest threat to our existence is nuclear or biological warfare, or envirmonmental collapse. We can reduce the threat to our existence by creating self-sufficient, off world settlements, either on other planets, moons, or asteroids, or man made settlements. By expanding a significant part of our population off of the planet our existence is no longer threatened by a planatery disaster. In fact the farther out we expand the more secured our continued existence becomes. If we can expand beyond our solar system we are no longer vulnerable to local stellar events. If we can expand throughout our entire galaxy, and even beyond it, then our continued existence is likely guaranteed for a very long time.
Unfortunately the fate of our universe is likely going to be our fate as well. There is no hard evidence that alternate universes exist, and even if they did, there is no known way to get to them. Thats not to say that will always be the case, anything is possible, but for now that idea belongs in the realm of science fiction.
The Big Crunch that is alluded to in the original post now looks like a very unlikely outcome. The two most likely scenarios, according to our current knowlege of cosmology, is the so called Big Rip, or heat death. The Big Rip is based on the recent discovery that the universal expansion is actually accelerating rather than slowing down. If the accelleration continues indefinitely then eventually all elementary particles will be flying away from each other at such a great speed that each one will exist in its own light cone and not be able to interact with any other particle in any way. Each particle would be its own universe essentially. Life as we know it could not exist under those conditions. Of course, that is still speculation. We don't know if the rate of acceleration will continue as it is now, speed up, or stop altogether, since we don't really understand what is driving it. So there is no way to know how close we are to this happening, or if it will happen at all.
The heat death scenario is the other possible scenario. If our universe is a closed system, and there is no evidence at this point that it isn't, then eventually there will be no free energy and entropy will be maximized. Since free energy is required for all known life processes, no known life could exist under thses circumstances.
Thankfully, neither of these scenarios is likely to occur any time soon. We will almost certainly not have to worry about anything like that for billions of years at least.

[Nathan Struth]

Eric I don't think the envirnment will collapse on us. If a person puts his hand on the stove and gets burnt when it touches the stove, it doesn't put its hand there any more. If there's global warming, I'm sure we'll develop some highly endothermic artificial reaction to combat it.

[Bluethunder1]

Quote by: alexGERMAN disease

Survived it since creation.

Quote by: alexGERMAN metors crashing into us

Again, we've made it this far.

Quote by: alexGERMAN destruction by massive storms, getting sucked into black holes, the universe eventually collapsing on itself.

Long odds.

Quote by: alexGERMAN blowing ourselves up

Out of all those selected, if the human race was to be destroyed I think that'd be the way it happened. The human race by nature, is very good at what it does: surviving. We become immune to diseases, we adapt to our environment, we survive.

I foresee the end of the world, or at the very least, the destruction of many nations before we learn better. There is no way to adapt to weapon technology. Only in the last sixty years has weapon technology gotten to the point that it can do true mass damage. That's not much time compared to how long we've been fighting off diseases.

Thankfully, most of the leaders are aware of the mutually assured destruction that will be caused by the use of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately for the entire human race, it only takes one crazy man(Not pointing fingers at any short men) to launch a nuclear weapon and cause mass damage.

[Jack]

Unfortunately for the entire human race, it only takes one crazy man(Not pointing fingers at any short men) to launch a nuclear weapon and cause mass damage.

It needn't be a head-of-state, either. Just replace the dynamite on the next suicide bomber or domestic terrorist's vest with a nuclear device and send him off to his doom...and everyone else's on the planet as well.

[Compugasm]

Quote by: alexGERMAN ...and we could just remove ourselves from existance like a deleted file

Got any scrap gold or diamonds you want to sell off? I'll give you $20 for it.