Jay Olson (lecturer at Boise State University) seeks to minimize a convenient reserve of free energy.

A few assumptions regarding life and technology translate into new cosmological solutions.

For the universe as a whole, will the next several billion years be any different from the last several billion years? What kinds of things could make it different? Something like a phase transition or a big rip would definitely break up the monotony, but that kind of thing seems unlikely to happen any time soon. Barring that, we can expect cosmic acceleration to push a bit harder, galaxies to get a bit dimmer, black holes to get a bit fatter.  It’s mostly a boring, predictable, stable time for the cosmos.

Then again, there is something a little different happening now. It hardly seems worth mentioning. It takes a while for the universe to produce enough heavy elements to form earthlike planets. And then, judging by our Continue reading →