No quarks can’t exist independantly of baryons, meson, etc due to quark confinement (or if this can be overcome only in very high energy situation) Also electrons aren’t made up of quarks. what would happen is that everything would become em radiation of increasingly longer wavelength.
Its been a while since i read it, so i’m probably remembering it slightly incorrectly. But matter does have an (extremely long) half life doesn’t it? So does it decay into em radiation?
*Consider my milestone point earlier… between 1940 and 2000 the world’s population doubled from 2.9 billion people to 6.1 billion people. * ~ Boo Boo
Consider Boo Boo, between 1940 and 2000 most of the concepts and terms used in this discussion only then came into play…
Quarks with baryons, mesons, etc. Black holes. Soylent Green. A supernova or the Big Crunch. A re-implosion (a oscillating universe). Global considerations. Monica Lewenski, etc.
Don’t you think that the folks between 2000 and 2060 might be able add a tad to this chicken-little discussion about entropy?
( Fire and Ice? Really Mr. December, aren’t you shamelessly displaying your age and erudition, or, in the world of today, are they one in the same?) ____ 
According to the sources I’ve been reading, the universe is expannding at an accelerating rate, to the point that billions of years in the future, the universe will be an infinite space containing only diassociated quarks.
But if anybody is interested in a hopeful view of the question, read Isaac Asimov’s short story, The Last Question.
Tsk, Tsk.
Man… phhhtt, go figure- always the pessimist.
I think it makes life more bearable if we look at the worst scenarios. Perhaps it lessens the burden a bit by adding some elements of perspective into the picture. Or perhaps mankind just cannot see himself lasting for so long. After all, the dinosaurs only lasted 100 million years or so, right? But we are only 150,000 years old or so, right?
Well, what I think will happen to mankind is optimistic- well, a bit I suppose. We will make it. The earth will make it. Life will go on. It will not be the same as we recognize, but neither is the world the same as it was 2,000 years ago. CHANGE is life. Chaos is life. Death is life.
I believe we will see the stars. We will find a way to conquer them. We will raze the heavens as we have the earth. It is just the way of things. Survival is key, and it doesn’t matter at any cost. Eventually the universe will break down due to entropy, energy will become less and less available, and we know this. To this very day we know this, and knowing it is the only thing that can save us.
We will learn more about Virtual particles, how the universe came into existance, and in learning about this, perhaps find away to slow down the age of the universe. More than likely even reverse the very process iteself. I would wager on the fact that we can harness virtual particles and convert them into usable energy ourselfs, perhaps even to create our own universes we can migrate into and save some time. What we could do to grow more after that is incomprehensible to me, and thus I couldn’t even speculate. We would be Gods at that point- what use in anything once you have everything? Our death will probably apathy if we die at all. After accomplishing everything, and there is nothing more to grow into, nothing more to challenge us, nothing more to excite us, then we are dead anyhow- how our existances end is inconsequential.
Perhaps once we reach this stage, a whole new battlefield will come into play- opposing races, other gods battleing for control and survival, other universes with differing laws of physics, incomprehensible states of being that can accomplish things that may be wonderous to a creature in such a state of being, yet have no corresponding similarty in our current states.
One could say that we would not be humans at this point- and I agree. We would still be humanity, in as much as I am Roman, or Kurgan- in Ancestory only. At what stage would you call them no longer human, and can safely say they died though?
And on Wednesdays, you get double stamps on your Soylent Green stamp card. Ten stamps and you get a free bag o’ green!
It’s People you fools… SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!
That being said I wonder if there is any reason that we have to believe that there will be a continued geometric increase in population. There must be a point as there was in past epoch that population growth hit a wall until something, reduced the death rate (Diseases etc) or increased the life span.
Can there not be another wall we’ll hit to either slow down the growth (Rising infertility or worse dwindling resources)? Can we assume that trends will remain the same.
Not that it matters as we’ll be gone when the universe spreads out so thin there will be nothing left.
Does thinking about these questions make anyone else feel better rather than worse? I woke up today very depressed about the state of my life and some petty, stupid stuff I have to do. After spending a few hours on the Dope, this is the thread that has really picked me up. Thinking about the long term – I’m going to die, and eventually the entire species is going to die out – puts this life in perspective for me.
I still believe in caring for the planet we have, but I find it comforting to know that we’re all dust in the wind anyway.
It’s just me, isn’t it?
kingpengvin – there was a good thread recently about how the earth’s population is going to stabilize at around 9 billion – lots of cites and evidence was provided.
I think knowledge currently doubles every 7 years nowadays.
You also have to take into account that 3/4 of the world still lives a lifestyle reminicent of the 18th century. in 100 years, many more countries will pump out alot of science. So whatever problems we may face we will probably have a solution to eventually.
I remember Malthus wrote in the 18th century that people would eventually outstrip food supply, and we are about to. however, he didn’t take into account how technology would increase food supply. The tactics of overcoming a problem like htat are much more advanced in today’s age. Same with this issue, when the time comes i’m sure we’ll have thought of something.
Now that is a truly prejudiced statement. I mean…for God’s sake!!!
Do you really believe that mankind is the “Be All, End All” of the universe, or even this planet? Ok, it’s natural to think we are, since every species tends to think of its own needs above all others. But here’s the 4-1-1: the Earth was around LONG before us, on the magnitude of billions of years, and it will exist LONG after we’re done destroying ourselves. Humankind is barely a blip on the radar, as far as the universe is concerned.
On a long enough timespan, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Boo Boo Foo, Darwin tells us that if our environment can’t support us, we’ll die off. We haven’t reached that point yet, because population is still growing.
You know my physics textbook says protons and electrons are stable (neutros are known to be unstable) but other sources tell me that all matter is unstable.
TheDexter wrote…
Granted…
Except for something… obviously all species innately consider their own self perpetuation as their primary reason for existence - however, humanity does so at great expense to our ecology. Further, humanity has the ability to collect, and aggregate accumulated knowledge - which in turn ensures that our descendants are logarithmically more influential on our ecology than our forebears.
I’d like to clarify my position if I may.
Here in Australia, there is now a very healthy understanding of doing whatever it takes to look after our local flora and fauna these days. Our civil institutions are now very mature and the infrastructures needed to set aside resources and land to caring for the environment are generally supported by the nation’s population with great enthusiasm and relish.
Sadly, however, it’s been a long time coming, and much damage has already been done. And most importantly, Australia (like many Western countries) truly needed to mature in terms of civil administration and infrastructure before the environment became an issue which could permanently show up on the radar screen.
My great sadness is that in many, many parts of the world we’re seeing epic population explosions which are being artificially supported at the expense of their local ecologies. Consider the dreadful pollution in the Caspian sea for example. Or the former majestic Aztec canals which have now been overrun with 17 million people in Mexico City. The explosion of humanity in the Third World in particular is just a crying shame. Every year, thousands more acres of Amazon rain forest are cut down etc etc etc.
This is why I offered my assertion earlier that Mother Nature has provided us with a pre-determined kill switch. It’s our ability to harm our environment which ultimately makes our environment unliveable.
Also, one other thing that humanity can do which no other species can do is that we can adapt our environment to suit OUR needs, as averse to us adapting to our environments. Stuff like massive air conditioning in desert regions, and central heating in super cold regions. That’s another example of intelligence - doubtless - but I would also suggest it’s another example of our inevitable push to inhabit every nook and cranny of the planet - and in doing so, all along our local flora and fauna will suffer sadly
That’s certainly true, but I’m not the universe, so I don’t care about its opinion, and that blip is my blip . So, I do share the opinion of the poster you were responding to. I too would cut the last tree (and damn! I love trees…) to insure the survival of our specie.
Our effects on the earth is miniscule. It may effect us, it may not, but it is still pretty minor effects. So we kill off a few hundred thousand species in our reign of earth. Big freaking deal- how many species has died off on this planet never to be seen again? Who cares if a three toed sloth dies, something else replaces it. Life goes on.
A huge nuclear war might cause some enviromental havok, but probably no more than the HUGE meteor that demolished part of mexico and made the Gulf there. (can’t recall the name of it) Hell, it probably caused the crust itself to ripple and crack and all kinds of stuff. Life went on- albiet only a bit of it. 
Mankind is like nothing else. We have intelligence. We can shape our destiny, shape the enviroment, etc. We cannot be bound by the same probablities as simpler life. We have foresight, hindsight and have built a knowledge base that just tips the scales so far the rest of the planet just went flying off the scale.
We wont destroy ourselfs. We aren’t capable of it, yet. And those doomsayers that claim otherwise are fools, IMO.
You are God, grok?
Population isn’t the great problem many people make it out to be…
the real problem is wealth distribution.
Wealth is not money . as many people believe it to be,
but the correct use of energy throughput in a society.
As long as Mankind can continue to find a source of energy in order to maintain that thoughput, mankind will continue to exist, and so will the world of nature- if the millions of species that exist on Earth now are not good enough for you, wait and see the billions of species genetic engineering will produce.
I recommend that anyone concerned with the far future reads Stephen Baxter’s Time, and perhaps better, the original ideas in Freeman Dyson’s deep future scenario.
Eventually loss-free reversible computing is all that will be open to us-
not with a bang but an endless reiteration…
but that will be incredibly far in the future (unless the Big Rip scenario is correct).
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html