The Five Ages of the Universe

Jan 25 2001 @ 12:12 by Tormod Guldvog

Our universe is about 10 billion years. Now imagine that these years are not even one billionth of the life expectancy of the Cosmos. Are you up for the ride? Read our review of "The Five Ages of the Universe", by Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin.

Book Title The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the physics of eternity Authors Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin

The authors introduce a term they call a "cosmological decade". It is simply based on the function 10^x years, where x is the number of the decade. Thus, we live in the 10th cosmological decade (10¹⁰, or 10.000.000.000 years). While it is an effective way to imagine the passage of time, it is breathtaking in scope. Each cosmological decade is 10 times longer than the previous one. When you reach the 20th decade, the universe is not twice as old as today, but rather 10¹⁰ times older, or 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 (hundred billion billion) years old.

Don?t say that out loud
If you imagine that the universe could last for 101 such decades, you get a number which is so large that it is impossible to understand. Compared to the current age of the universe, it is so mind-bogglingly huge that it almost becomes a parody. And on such timescales, anything might happen.

But, the authors claim, this prediction is based on modern physics theories, and they actually make a good case for it. They divide the life of the universe into 5 distinct eras: The Primordial era, which includes the Big Bang, the Stelliferous era, in which we live, the Degenerate era, in which all the stars burn out, the Black Hole era, in which everything has turned into a black hole, and finally, the Dark era, in which the universe dies a slow, cold death.

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