james1v wrote:How? With the death of me.

Yes. That is a truly uncomfortable thought to have. One of those - like trying to imagine infinity - that the mind rebels against focusing on for very long.

The list omitted this one - perhaps the granddaddy of all doomsday scenarios: Vacuum metastability event.

(Uncle Orph'sTM popcorn - "batten down the hatches!" )

"Why worry be happy".

It will end when it ends.

I've already booked a table at the Restaurant...

You can always end up here:

Scot Dutchy wrote:You can always end up here:

With that kind of electrical wiring, the name might be appropriate.

orpheus wrote:The list omitted this one - perhaps the granddaddy of all doomsday scenarios: Vacuum metastability event.

That sounds like the quantum version of 'God flicks the off switch'. Lights out time, boys and girls!

Fear the Gamma: http://astrobites.org/2014/10/08/gamma- ... -on-earth/

Made of Stars wrote:

orpheus wrote:The list omitted this one - perhaps the granddaddy of all doomsday scenarios: Vacuum metastability event.

That sounds like the quantum version of 'God flicks the off switch'. Lights out time, boys and girls!

Yeah, it smacks of scratching around for something "newsworthy" and "exciting" after the faiure to turn up anything new from finding the Higgs boson.

DougC wrote:A couple of million years from now, the Cockroach theists will be denying that Humans ever existed.

DougC wrote:A couple of million years from now, the Cockroach AI theists will be denying that Humans ever existed.

FIFY

which makes one wonder if John Platko and Pl0bs are not one and the same?

DavidMcC wrote:

Made of Stars wrote:

orpheus wrote:The list omitted this one - perhaps the granddaddy of all doomsday scenarios: Vacuum metastability event.

That sounds like the quantum version of 'God flicks the off switch'. Lights out time, boys and girls!

Yeah, it smacks of scratching around for something "newsworthy" and "exciting" after the faiure to turn up anything new from finding the Higgs boson.

You're right, it does sound like that. However, Coleman and de Luccia's paper describing the phenomenon was published back in 1980 — decades before the Higgs hullabaloo. I'm not necessarily endorsing their view, but it looks like it might be a real thing.

kennyc wrote:which makes one wonder if John Platko and Pl0bs are not one and the same?

Do you wonder if Bigfoot is real too?

How will we know when the world ends? The observed world is not the actual world, after all. For all we know the fucker ended millions of years ago. Or it never existed. Or it hasn't come into being yet. Or something.

I'm getting another brandy, fuck it.

laklak wrote:How will we know when the world ends? The observed world is not the actual world, after all. For all we know the fucker ended millions of years ago. Or it never existed. Or it hasn't come into being yet. Or something.

I'm getting another brandy, fuck it.

That's #6.

Gamma Ray Burst:

http://www.iflscience.com/space/deadly- ... tion-earth

orpheus wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

Made of Stars wrote:

orpheus wrote:The list omitted this one - perhaps the granddaddy of all doomsday scenarios: Vacuum metastability event.

That sounds like the quantum version of 'God flicks the off switch'. Lights out time, boys and girls!

Yeah, it smacks of scratching around for something "newsworthy" and "exciting" after the faiure to turn up anything new from finding the Higgs boson.

You're right, it does sound like that. However, Coleman and de Luccia's paper describing the phenomenon was published back in 1980 — decades before the Higgs hullabaloo. I'm not necessarily endorsing their view, but it looks like it might be a real thing.

Even if it does pre-date the Higgs boson discovery, it is still just a work more of pure imagination than science - a scary kind of "what if?", with no evidence for it's reality.