It’s one of the hypotheses of what will happen to our universe in the very very distant future. It’s a state where the entire universe is at the same very low temperature. Without temperature differences, you can’t do any work anymore.
It’s a theory that explains, due to the universe expanding, that eventually all the paricles in the universe will eventually be so far apart that they won’t be able to interact with each other. There will be no energy (heat) left in the universe.
It’s after the last stars and black holes and all other bodies have stopped producing energy and break down.
Stars eventually die. They either explode (go supernova) or collapse into a black hole. The matter is either spread out, which can coalesce into things like planets, or it gets trapped in a massively dense object that itself traps more matter. It’ll take trillions of years, but eventually, all matter is going to be trapped or so spread out it can’t do anything. No stars, no planets, just black holes and useless dust expanding further and further away forever with cold, empty space in between.
If you fill a balloon with air, it concentrates a bunch of air molecules into a confined space. It probably even gets “hotter” as you squeeze all the air into the balloon (air molecules closer together, bouncing off each other, gets hotter)
If you then release the end of the balloon and all the air that was concentrated in the balloon is now equally dispersed into the room.. and the balloon is now “flat” and “cool” with nothing interesting happening.
You might call that the heat death of the balloon.
Now for the universe, just swap “concentrated air” “low entropy” (think unburnt fuel with high potential for excitement)
Eventually our universe will go “flat”. The air in our balloon will be equally distributed everywhere in the room/universe
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It’s one of the hypotheses of what will happen to our universe in the very very distant future. It’s a state where the entire universe is at the same very low temperature. Without temperature differences, you can’t do any work anymore.
It’s a theory that explains, due to the universe expanding, that eventually all the paricles in the universe will eventually be so far apart that they won’t be able to interact with each other. There will be no energy (heat) left in the universe.
It’s after the last stars and black holes and all other bodies have stopped producing energy and break down.
It will be a very long time away.
Stars eventually die. They either explode (go supernova) or collapse into a black hole. The matter is either spread out, which can coalesce into things like planets, or it gets trapped in a massively dense object that itself traps more matter. It’ll take trillions of years, but eventually, all matter is going to be trapped or so spread out it can’t do anything. No stars, no planets, just black holes and useless dust expanding further and further away forever with cold, empty space in between.
If you fill a balloon with air, it concentrates a bunch of air molecules into a confined space. It probably even gets “hotter” as you squeeze all the air into the balloon (air molecules closer together, bouncing off each other, gets hotter)
If you then release the end of the balloon and all the air that was concentrated in the balloon is now equally dispersed into the room.. and the balloon is now “flat” and “cool” with nothing interesting happening.
You might call that the heat death of the balloon.
Now for the universe, just swap “concentrated air” “low entropy” (think unburnt fuel with high potential for excitement)
Eventually our universe will go “flat”. The air in our balloon will be equally distributed everywhere in the room/universe
It’s when all heat in the universe is evenly distributed throughout the entire universe. Without any differences in energy, no work can happen.
Just wait for a while. A long while. You’ll see. 🙂