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Comment by temporallobe | Hacker News Reader

Please forgive me, I am not a cosmologist, merely a humble software engineer - but your timespans of 30+ billion and into “trillions” of years seem awfully askew. The age if the entire universe is estimated at “only” 13.77 billion years old, so how is this possible? Are we simply in an extremely young universe?

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> Are we simply in an extremely young universe?

Well, in the set of positive reals, any number you randomly pick will be very small compared to the vast majority of all the numbers in the set.

Yeah because the age of the universe can't be negative.

Yes, by our current cosmological models, we are in a very young universe.

We don't really know, but it may be the case that the universe is only conducive to life during this phase of its existence.

From my understanding the universe is but a toddler - the longest stretch of its life will be AFTER the last stars have died - this video is somewhat existential dread inducing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA

See also: it's quite likely that no red dwarf anywhere in existence has run out of fuel, yet - some are estimated to last as long as 10 trillion years.

I find the concept of a black dwarf to be fascinating. Like you said - none have existed yet, and any absorption of matter as it floats through space will prolong its radiant heat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dwarf

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