Three Trillion Years from Now, the Vikings and Bills Will Meet in the Super Bowl and One of Them Will Have to Win

There’s a occassional snippet in TMQ (Tuesday Morning Quarterback) that goes beyond the realm of sports in to the realm of philosophy, science, or all of the above. Here’s one that gave me lolz, mainly because it picks at painful scabs of Vikings and Bills fans who have both suffered through multiple Super Bowl defeats.

(I’m evil when I’m sick)

Three Trillion Years from Now, the Vikings and Bills Will Meet in the Super Bowl and One of Them Will Have to Win:

Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University, one of the hot names in physics, is first author of this fascinating paper. The paper predicts that 3 trillion years from now, the universe will have expanded to such vastness, and its edges accelerated to such speeds, that an observer in our galaxy, the Milky Way, will not be able to see any other galaxy. At that far date, Krauss supposes, from the standpoint of the Milky Way, it would appear that our galaxy was all that existed. The ancient Greeks believed our galaxy was all that existed, so over the very long term, their view might come back into fashion! Krauss further hypothesized that once the universe is so spread out the galaxies can’t see each other, there no longer would be any evidence of the Big Bang. Humanity, Krauss contends, is fortunate to have popped up relatively early in the life span of the cosmos, which appears to be about 14 billion years old — less than 1 percent of a 3-trillion-year period — because the firmament is young enough to remain rich with clues as to how the heavens came into being. Think what might happen to an intelligent species arising 3 trillion years from now, Krauss continued. Able to perceive only its own galaxy, that species might not realize a larger universe exists, and might be perplexed about what force could have formed a single cluster of stars floating in an endless void. My speculation: The beings in this scenario would conclude that all existence was created for them personally, which is roughly what our ancestors believed.

Fascinating stuff! But as a prediction about what will happen in 3 trillion years, Krauss’ paper takes the cake for most-ever hubris in prediction. And the paper contained qualifiers! Apparently the editorial board of the journal of General Relativity and Gravitation wanted to make sure the publication will not receive snippy letters to the editor if it turns out, 3 trillion years from now, that you can still see the universe. “Dear Editor, 3 trillion years ago, your supposedly respectable journal predicted … ”

16 February 2008 | NFL, Philosophical | Comments