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Eternity is unstable

Nature volume 276, pages 453–459 (1978)Cite this article

Abstract

We show that if the Universe expands forever, it will become increasingly irregular in the far future. In particular, we demonstrate that the Hawking black hole evaporation process causes a vortical instability to develop in spatially homogeneous spacetimes which are approximately k = 0 Friedmann universes. We associate the increase of irregularity with the increase of gravitational field entropy, and thus provide a novel picture of the universal heat death.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astrophysics, University of Oxford, UK

    John D. Barrow

  2. Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley

    John D. Barrow

  3. Department of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720

    Frank J. Tipler

Authors
  1. John D. Barrow
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  2. Frank J. Tipler
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Barrow, J., Tipler, F. Eternity is unstable. Nature 276, 453–459 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/276453a0

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