20 minutes! It took me 30 minutes to comment on 45 seconds!
Krauss’ Paper from 1999
First Krauss’ paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9902189.pdf. It’s very interesting but if you want to read the abstract and conclusion feel free. To evaluate any claims beyond that will require a more technical reading of the paper.
Dark Energy Side Note
Wikipedia summarizes the evidence for this acceleration in our expansion along with some possible models that cosmologists are trying to measure: Accelerating expansion of the universe - Wikipedia
Claim: The field of astronomical observation will shrink within the relatively near future. “And as Lawrence Krauss points out in his paper, more and more of the universe will cease to be visible and if you wait long enough the sun will be moving away from us greater than the velocity of light”
Okay’s let’s look at the paper. What Krauss writes is regarding the future lack of ability to measure cosmological phenomena:
This time-scale is remarkably short, at least compared to the times we shall shortly discuss. It implies that when the universe is less than two-hundred times its present age, comparable to the lifetime of very low mass stars, any remaining intelligent life will no longer be able to obtain new empirical data on the state of large scale structure on scales we can now observe.
Interesting. Hugh implies that we really are in this perfect window to observe the entire universe. What Krauss actually wrote is that yes, the timescale is short compared to other times he presented… BUT the time when we will no longer be able to obtain any new information is approximately when the universe is 200 times its present age (or ~2 trillion years from now!!!)
Yes, that is literally what Krauss wrote. But the implication by Hugh Ross is that we are running out of time to learn of this ‘cosmic creation event.’ To which I say, yeah sure, 2 trillion years from now.
Claim: Krauss says there are more troublesome things to be concerned about. We’re gonna see star formation ceasing
I think what Hugh is referring to is this quote from the conclusion of the paper:
We can take solace from two facts. The constraints we provide here are ultimate constraints on eternal life which may be of more philosophical than practical interest. The actual time frames of interest which limit the longevity of civilization on physical grounds, are extremely long, in excess of 10^50−10^100 years, depending upon cosmological and biological issues. On such time-scales much more pressing issues, including the death of stars, and the possible ultimate instability of matter, may determine the evolution of life.
This is summarized by the wikipedia page: Future of an expanding universe - Wikipedia
In an expanding universe star formation will cease ~100 trillion years from now. That’s perhaps mildly depressing but that’s 100 trillion years. I don’t know how to fathom quite how long that is from now.
Claim: We astronomers observe that star formation has already shut down in more than 90% of galaxies in the universe
I’m not entirely sure where the claim that 90% of galaxies are done with star formation (i.e. dead) is coming from, but I was familiar with a 2012 paper on star formation rate in general that RTB wrote about: http://old.reasons.org/articles/end-of-star-formation-signals-new-beginning. The RTB article cites one study that noted that star formation rates (when looking at galaxies that are quite far away and hence we are seeing them as they were when the universe was younger) were over 30 times higher at greater redshifts compared to current rates.
An interesting critique of the paper used to support the RTB article I linked can be found here. Every Galaxy will have New Stars for Trillions of Years! | ScienceBlogs
Yes, it’s interesting that the star formation rate has declined, and it’s interesting that it’s declined at the rate we’ve observed. But it’s not going to drop to zero any time soon, and if you sum up the total number of stars in our Universe’s future, it’s actually far greater than the number of stars that have already existed up until this point in time, a far cry from the “only 5% more than we have now” figure you may have read.
Poking around more articles on their website, perhaps this could be what Hugh is referring to? http://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/todays-new-reason-to-believe/2017/06/27/dead-galaxy-gives-more-proof-of-big-bang-creation-model
I don’t know. Let’s just move on.
Claim: Ours is one of the few galaxies where star formation is still continuing
Okay. This is IMPOSSIBLE to measure or know. Why? Because we see all things as they once were, NOT as they presently are. Anytime we see galaxies merging, guess what happens? Lots of new stars! Wahoo! Here’s one list of 100 galaxies merging: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0067-0049/181/1/233/pdf.
There are 2 trillion galaxies out there. (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.03909v2.pdf) If a galaxy is 2 billion light years away, we are measuring whatever it was doing 2 billion years ago. Maybe it died since then. Maybe it merged with something else. We don’t know and can’t know what it is presently doing for another 2+ billion years.
Claim: Gaining knowledge will become increasingly impossible beyond a certain point
Krauss actually notes that this will be occurring ~10^50 years from now. 10 to the 50th!!! Note: you’d never actually get that from Hugh’s presentation but would have the impression that we are in this EXTREMELY small window. But so far, the window for various things has ranged from 2 trillion years to 10^50th years.
Claim: With the end of all consciousness is the end of all hope, purpose, or destiny
This is the end of Hugh’s summary of cosmic heat death. While not entirely clear, these words were not part of Krauss’ paper but were added as a commentary to his paper. However, anyone watching might naturally think that this is the logical conclusion of the rightfully shocking idea of cosmic heat death! But Krauss is actually more optimistic in his actual paper which you can read in the conclusion if you like.
Claim: We can’t appear any earlier than 13.7 billion years to see this cosmic creation event. For example if we showed up 5 billion years ago, we’d only see about 2/3rd of the universe. If we would have shown up about 5 billion years into the future, we’d again only see about 2/3rd of the universe.
To be honest, I have no idea what Hugh’s talking about here, but it’s certainly an interesting claim. I have to admit I initially am quite skeptical of such a claim. I gotta stop. I will have to look at the corresponding book that goes along with the teaching. (for personal note I’m at around 20-21 minutes into the video)