| Heat Death Of The Universe |
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| physical cosmology | |
| eschatology | |
| thermodynamic entropy | |
| heat | |
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ORIGINS OF THE IDEA The idea of heat death stems from the Second Law Of Thermodynamics , which claims that entropy tends to increase in an isolated system. If the universe lasts for a sufficient time, it will Asymptotically approach a state where all Energy is evenly distributed. Hermann Von Helmholtz is thought to be the first to propose the idea of heat death in 1854 , 11 years before Clausius's definitive formulation of the Second Law Of Thermodynamics in terms of Entropy ( 1865 ). However, observations about the loss of available energy as Heat had been formulated by Sadi Carnot as early as 1824 . TEMPERATURE OF THE UNIVERSE Despite the term "heat death", the temperature of the entire universe would be very close to Absolute Zero in this scenario. Heat death is however not quite the same as "cold death" or the " Big Freeze " in which the universe simply becomes too cold to sustain life due to continued expansion, though the result is quite similar (see: {Link without Title} for a more detailed explanation). CURRENT STATUS Recent work in Inflationary Cosmology has inverted the heat death notion, suggesting that the early universe was in a Thermal Equilibrium and thus heat death–like state before cosmic expansion. Meanwhile, in an expanding universe, some believe the maximum possible entropy increases far more quickly than the actual entropy with each time increment, pushing the universe continually further away from an equilibrium state despite increasing entropy. Furthermore, the very notion of thermodynamic modelling of the universe has been questioned, since the effects of such factors as Gravity and Quantum phenomena are very difficult to reconcile with simple thermodynamic models, rendering the utility of such models as predictive systems highly doubtful according to some. Nonetheless, assuming that the second law of thermodynamics is an appropriate model and the Universe is a closed system, the scientific evidence overwhelmingly points to an eventual heat death. However, see Final Anthropic Principle for a discussion of the idea that the second law does not imply life's eventual Extinction . SEE ALSO
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