[xorbax]

24 years is nothing in the scale of the universe

If it increases entropy as much as many suspect and it only took 1/3 of a couple humans' lives to open that phase space, the Universe has done what it wanted - to hasten heat-death.

[odyssey7]

Interesting angle — but if heat death were possible it would have happened by now.

[cthalupa]

Huh? Heat death of the universe is going to take an incomprehensibly large amount of time. Like, 10^106 years.

The universe is A LOT younger than that.

[odyssey7]

As Hawking once explained, “Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang.” When cosmologists talk about the universe and its age, it seems to me, as a non-cosmologist, that they’re using terms of art related to their models.

Hawking’s explanation deduces that if the observable universe expanded from a singularity, we would be unable to meaningfully theorize what happened before then, since it would be beyond any form of observation to test the theory. Therefore, a scientific model rooted in observation can describe nothing earlier than the Big Bang.

However, not everything unseen is untrue. If a singularity were to form somewhere in Andromeda tomorrow — in all likelihood, one will — we will still have existed today.

Edit: The initial comment was meant as a lighthearted reply to the universe personification, but I ended up sensing a need to explain the reasoning.

[xorbax]

It's not "personification", it's the universe tending toward entropy increasing overall. I don't think I've heard anyone claim that heat death "should have happened" as an argument against it, or what it's supposed to mean in reference to the original post.

There is a singularity in Andromeda, so I don't know why one forming matters

[soulofmischief]

Please read up on heat death before continuing to share baseless information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe