[Spareribs]

The sun is around 4.5 billion years old but in about 4.5 billion years, it will end its life cycle and expand burning up the planets. As the sun expands, the oceans will begin to boil from the massive heat and eventually swallow this planet. Eventually, the sun will itself be destroyed and that will be end of our solar system.

My theory is that if there are still intelligent beings here on the this planet, the last centuries will be very stressful and emotionally sad. Perhaps there will be technology where people can escape to another habitable solar system but there will be skeptics who will refuse to leave. In the final century, saying goodbye to the Earth will be painfully sad as many people get ready to move on to another solar system.

This reminds me of stories of immigrants leaving their homelands in Europe in the 1800s to the new world in America and how painfull it was to leave their land and families. My feeling is that there will be great sadness, saying goodbye to this wonderul planet. Change is not always easy and it can be heartbreaking but sometimes there is no choice and we can only hope for happiness in the future.

 

[BobG55]

The sun is around 4.5 billion years old but in about 4.5 billion years, it will end its life cycle and expand burning up the planets. As the sun expands, the oceans will begin to boil from the massive heat and eventually swallow this planet. Eventually, the sun will itself be destroyed and that will be end of our solar system.

My theory is that if there are still intelligent beings here on the this planet, the last centuries will be very stressful and emotionally sad. Perhaps there will be technology where people can escape to another habitable solar system but there will be skeptics who will refuse to leave. In the final century, saying goodbye to the Earth will be painfully sad as many people get ready to move on to another solar system.

This reminds me of stories of immigrants leaving their homelands in Europe in the 1800s to the new world in America and how painfull it was to leave their land and families. My feeling is that there will be great sadness, saying goodbye to this wonderul planet. Change is not always easy and it can be heartbreaking but sometimes there is no choice and we can only hope for happiness in the future.

Hi Spareribs,
 
I'm sure you'll appreciate this video concerning this subject.  No viruses.
 
https://vimeo.com/124139626?

 

[Spareribs]

Great video. The way how the sun operates is incredible and under rated. My prediction is that sometime in the next few centuries or perhaps a few mileniums from now, there will be a heat proof way to enter into the sun for further research and more explicit views. It's gonna be wild and crazy.

 

[wink]

Boltzmann Brains rule....!    

 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

 

[Music Alchemist]

The evacuation of Earth reminds me of this Dragon Ball GT episode.

 

[wink]

Being at the mid point is only valid if you drink the scientific communities' kool-aid.
 
Wait another 50 years and they will be sprouting forth some completely different theory.
 
They will preface their latest proposals with the ubiquitous and obligatory phrase "We now know........" only to know something totally different down the track.
 
Take black holes for example.  The latest trending explanation is that black holes don't really exist in the classical explained manner, and the event horizon doesn't either.
 
The latest thinking is that the event horizon should be be replaced by the fire-wall proplosal as this negates the problem of information loss.

 

[Spareribs]

Mate, many theories have remained stable for many decades and even centuries. Be glad that the sun is still stable now because it won't last forever.

However, in the next billion years, I predict that there will be technology that can save the sun. Scientists and engineers will figure out a way to recharge the sun and replace certain elements of the sun to keep it from expiring.

The sun is not designed to last for all eternity. Perhaps the scientist may be wrong with the numbers in that the sun will last much longer like maybe 10 more billion years but with laws of physics, it will eventually burn out and when it's gone, it's over but there is still hope to save the sun.

 

[Music Alchemist]

However, in the next billion years, I predict that there will be technology that can save the sun.

 
In the next billion years, I predict that I won't be here.

 

[money4me247]

lol. recharge the sun? dude the sun has a circumference of 2,713,406 miles. The total volume of the sun is 1.4 x 1027 cubic meters. About 1.3 million Earths can fit inside the sun. There is absolutely nothing we can do that wld be able to impact something that is so much greater in magnitude. We can fire every single nuclear missile we have at the sun and the sun wldnt even notice. A nuclear bomb can output up to 100 megatons of energy, about 10^17 J total. The sun puts out 10^26 J in a single second. That is one billion times as much, in one single second, every single second.

 

[Spareribs]

Yeah I agree we can't do it now but we'll figure it out in the next billion years or so.

 

[Music Alchemist]

lol. recharge the sun? dude the sun has a circumference of 2,713,406 miles. The total volume of the sun is 1.4 x 1027 cubic meters. About 1.3 million Earths can fit inside the sun. There is absolutely nothing we can do that wld be able to impact something that is so much greater in magnitude. We can fire every single nuclear missile we have at the sun and the sun wldnt even notice. A nuclear bomb can output up to 100 megatons of energy, about 10^17 J total. The sun puts out 10^26 J in a single second. That is one billion times as much, in one single second, every single second.

 
Only Goku can save the sun.
 


 

 

[LaPierre]

The sun is around 4.5 billion years old but in about 4.5 billion years, it will end its life cycle and expand burning up the planets. As the sun expands, the oceans will begin to boil from the massive heat and eventually swallow this planet. Eventually, the sun will itself be destroyed and that will be end of our solar system.

My theory is that if there are still intelligent beings here on the this planet, the last centuries will be very stressful and emotionally sad. Perhaps there will be technology where people can escape to another habitable solar system but there will be skeptics who will refuse to leave. In the final century, saying goodbye to the Earth will be painfully sad as many people get ready to move on to another solar system.

This reminds me of stories of immigrants leaving their homelands in Europe in the 1800s to the new world in America and how painfull it was to leave their land and families. My feeling is that there will be great sadness, saying goodbye to this wonderul planet. Change is not always easy and it can be heartbreaking but sometimes there is no choice and we can only hope for happiness in the future.

If we're still around by then I have absolutely no doubts we'd have already colonized space in a variety of ways.

 

[billybob_jcv]

If Sol goes - whether it be by dying or exploding, we better have done more than just colonized space. Being anywhere in this solar system will not be good enough. We will need to be at other stars. The nearest Sol-like star is Tau-Ceti, which is 12 light-years away. That might sound "close" in interstellar terms, but that's 70,388,352,000,000 miles - 70 Trillion miles.

So - what does it *really* take to reach the *closest* Sol-like star?

1) The ability to travel at a speed of at least half the speed of light. That will make the journey a *mere* 24 years - not counting the time it takes to reach 50% of the speed of light and then slow back down. Is this possible in a million years? I would like to think so.

2) The ability to live in space for the time of the transit. Again assuming 50% of c, it is a minimum of 24 years, most of that time in the vast gulf between the stars. We will have to take ALL of our life-sustaining environmentals with us - air, water, food, etc. The alternative is suspended animation. Neither of these seems possible to me - not based on the human form as we know it today.

OK, so what if we assume we are not restricted to the human form?

3) Moving beyond H. sapiens. Could we evolve into a form that could survive outside of Earth's protective embrace? A million years ago, H. Sapiens did not yet exist. Neither did H. neanderthal. H. erectus was at approximately the midpoint of its existence. So, yes, a million years is enough time for a significant amount of natural evolution - but even H. erectus is not a very large evolutionary change. He's still a mostly water-filled sack of protoplasm that breathes oxygen and expels carbon dioxide. That's level of change isn't going to provide us any significant ability to survive in space or on anywhere different than good old Earth.

Could we *create* the ability to change ourselves? In a million years could we engineer our DNA or our molecular architecture such that we could survive off Earth? Hmm - that's a tough one. I am thinking the issue is less about whether we *could*, and more about what would we change into? What would allow us to survive in space? What can survive in vacuum and at a temperature so close to absolute zero that's the difference doesn't matter? But, maybe we don't have to go that far. In Old Man's War, John Scalzi wrote about humans that were modified to survive war on alien worlds. The modifications included skin that could photosynthesize so you did not need food, smart blood that would instantly clot and repair tissues and the ability to transfer your mind from one body to another. Which leads me to the next idea...

4) Mind transference as a means of travel. Since the flesh is weak, leave it behind. If you can transfer a mind like a stream of digital data, then there is no reason to transport the body at a fraction of the speed of light. All you need to do is send your mind as a transmission to a body waiting for you on the other side of the transfer. Travel time is cut in half (12 years to Tau Ceti), and there would be no pesky body aging or life-support needed during the transfer. Time would not even pass for your consciousness while in transit. Of course, this requires an awful lot of infrastructure at the receiving end, so this is definitely putting the cart before the horse. *If* we can establish an interstellar civilization, then such miracles might come - but not before...

 

[Spareribs]

I've thought about the idea that we will not be Homo Sapiens as we are today and in theory, we are still evolving. I'm curious to see what we would look like in the next evolutionary phases. And the idea of us controlling our evolution for improvement sounds excellent as you have indicated.

Curiously, if humans moved to one solar system and another group of humans moved a different solar system. Perhaps the 2 groups of humans in two separate solar systems would evolve very differently over time and look completely different.

But yeah, the other idea of transferring the minds like a digital stream without the body would seem highly convenient. Would it be expensive? Would money even exist?

Currently (theoretically too) the sun at 50% power in its life stage seems to be working well. Perhaps these are the golden years of our existence.

 

[Music Alchemist]

I've thought about the idea that we will not be Homo Sapiens as we are today and in theory, we are still evolving. I'm curious to see what we would look like in the next evolutionary phases. And the idea of us controlling our evolution for improvement sounds excellent as you have indicated.

Curiously, if humans moved to one solar system and another group of humans moved a different solar system. Perhaps the 2 groups of humans in two separate solar systems would evolve very differently over time and look completely different.

But yeah, the other idea of transferring the minds like a digital stream without the body would seem highly convenient. Would it be expensive? Would money even exist?

Currently (theoretically too) the sun at 50% power in its life stage seems to be working well. Perhaps these are the golden years of our existence.

 
As an Alchemist, this is a non-issue for me. I can simply transfer my soul into a new body over and over again.

 
Reference for all you non-anime fans out there: http://fma.wikia.com/wiki/Dante