Member
Hi I came across this video on YouTube. It talks about hypertetical but then says 2020. Is any of this true for 2020 or is this another fake video. I am not posting this as a troll I am asking a legitimate question. The collapse of the universe part seems a little far fetched for the next year or so.
https://youtu.be/7br54XMBJ5o
Last edited by Sinbad; 2019-Nov-10 at 08:06 PM.
Moderator
Sinbad
Since you are asking a question, and do not appear to be advocating any of this, I am moving this to Q&A. Against the Mainstream (ATM) is for advocating non-mainstream ideas. If you are "just asking" Q&A is the place.
Order of Kilopi
There's really no content in that video, but vacuum decay is a thing.
The short answer is that it's not really related to age of the universe; yes, it could - in principle - happen next year or today.
But you might want to read up on it a little more. You can always start with wiki and its references.
Member
So the video is right that it can happen in 2020?
Order of Kilopi
It could happen, but it is no more likely to happen then than at any other point in the future.
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Member
What has happened to cause this to be a concern In a short timeframe now. So basically from what I read the Higgs is just sitting there right now held at CERN and it could be growing as we speak and cause a false vacuum shortly.
Articles state that this can be an issue in a long time frame so why all of a sudden will this happen in our lifetime.
Last edited by Sinbad; 2019-Nov-10 at 11:19 PM.
Moderator
For those who don't want to watch the video (it isn't worth it), here are their 15 ways the world could end in 2020
- Vacuum collapse
- Terrorism
- Mass insanity
- Rogue black hole
- World War III
- Alien plague
- Super volcano
- Robots
- Asteroid Bennu
- Super humans
- Gamma ray burst
- Giant solar flares
- Ecosystem collapse
- Ice age
- Is anything real?
One would have to debunk each one individually, but for the most part none of these are more likely in 2020 or any particular time. Some of them are possible and would be bad, but wouldn't end the world. Some of them are just nonsense.
And there are a lot of things said in the video that are just wrong. For example, Bennu does have a 1:2700 chance of hitting the Earth after 2175 (not 2020). But then the video says "it could change course at anytime". Really? How is that going to happen? That's just not true.
Moderator
Nothing has happened. People have been predicting the end of the world for as long as there have been people. These videos pop up all the time.Originally Posted by Sinbad
The Higgs isn't "just sitting" anywhere. The Higgs bosons are throughout the universe; they just happened to have been created in controlled ways and seen by the detectors at CERN so they could be studied.
Since before the LHC was turned on at CERN there have been unfounded claims that it would create high-energy events that would destroy the Earth or the Universe (there is a whole thread about it here). Thing is, higher energy events happen all the time in the Earth's atmosphere from cosmic rays, and throughout the universe, and so far, nothing has been destroyed.
Member
Thank you Swift, but that does not explain why the vacuum decay will happen in the near future
Moderator
I don't think it will. I think the general consensus is that false vacuum and vacuum decay (wikipedia article) is not a correct description of the universe. And even if it was, there is no more likelihood that vacuum decay will happen in 2020 or a trillion years from now.
Member
Okay I see, cause the comment above in this thread mention things like could happen in 2020 or today. And another one it could happen in 2020 or in the future. Sounded to me like posts meant short term.
Order of Kilopi
No, that's not what the intent of either the comments was. They just meant to say, we don't know if a false vacuum decay will happen now or anytime in the future. If it does happen, it could happen today, tomorrow, next year, the year after that, whenever, and there is no reason to think it would happen in 2020 more than any other year.
And adding to what Swift says, a Higg's boson has a lifetime much, much less than a second. It's a particle that kind of comes and goes, and you can't even measure it directly. You are probably thinking of mini black holes rather than Higg's bosons, because there was an argument that mini black holes created by the LHC might grow and devour the earth (not a real problem either).
As above, so below
Order of Kilopi
Personally, I think that the asteroid one (not necessarily Bennu) is the most likely (because it seems to have happened in the past). The "mass insanity" is obviously wrong, because otherwise we'd be long gone.
As above, so below
Member
I think I get it now. So basically this is just a theory and something that would have been around since the beginning and has not happened yet so there is no reason to believe this will happen in the near future or in our lifetime. Am I correct now.
Moderator
Yes.
To nitpick, you are right about "just a theory" in the popular-culture sense of that term. But in the scientific community, saying something is "just a theory" is frowned upon. Theories are actually very powerful things: General Relativity is "just a theory". Evolution by natural selection is "just a theory". I would say that vacuum collapse is "just a hypothesis", just an unproven, undemonstrated idea. If you have a hypothesis and you gather a lot of evidence that it is correct, then it becomes a theory.
Member
I missed this part in the article I read billions of years. It’s safe to say I won’t be here lol
If measurements of these particles suggests that our universe lies within a false vacuum of this kind, then it would imply—more than likely in many billions of years[16][Note 1]—that it could cease to exist as we know it, if a true vacuum happened to nucleate.[16]
Thank you all for clarifying
Order of Kilopi
Solipsism is a dangerous and destabilizing idea, true.
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Order of Kilopi
The video is hilarious, and about as useful as stated in the title above.
See you in 2021.
I'm not a hardnosed mainstreamer; I just like the observations, theories, predictions, and results to match.
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Order of Kilopi
All End of the World threads should be moved to Fun-n-Games.
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