Universe has less of a future than previously thought

By William Atkins
Monday, 25 January 2010 18:40

Science - Space

Australian researchers have measured the amount of entropy that exists now in the Universe. They found that the Universe has much less energy available than had been previously measured. Are they right? Is the Universe aging faster?


The authors of the research are Charles “Charley” H. Lineweaver, a professor from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Australian National University (ANU), and Chas A. Egan, Ph.D. student at ANU.

Their article “A Larger Estimate of the Entropy of the Universe” will be published in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Their analysis of the entropy within the Universe found that it is about 30 times higher than other projections had previously measured. In other words, according to these researchers, the Universe has a thirty times higher entropy number than what was earlier calculated.

Entropy is a measure of energy expenditure of any system, such as the Universe. The Universe began with a low entropy number (low disorder).

However, as the Universe gets older its entropy number gets higher (higher disorder) as it expends more energy. Thus, the higher entropy number (the more entropy), the more energy has been expended.

Entropy is calculated to find out how efficient a system is, such as an engine or a Universe, and how quickly the system will run down.

Energy is continually expended in the Universe, and the more energy that has been expended in the past, the less energy that is available in the future.

In fact, Egan stated, “The universe started out in a low entropy state and, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy has been increasing ever since. This is important because the amount of energy available to life in the universe, including terrestrial life, depends on the entropy of the universe.”

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