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> We are 50% of the way between the big bang and heat death of the universe.

Not even close. Star formation is going to continue for at least another trillion years, and red dwarves are going to continue shining for tens of trillions of years after that.

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When will the universe expand so much that atoms break down?

Depends entirely on what dark energy does in the future; "never" is compatible with all current observations. IIRC, the shortest interval is still x9 the age of the universe: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2%2F%28%283%7C1-0.907%7...

Never. Atoms break down because they’re unstable, not because of universal expansion. Unless you buy the big rip hypothesis, in which case who knows.

They’ve got a lot less time than that. Check out Nate hagens work on resource depletion and you’ll see to simplify it x1000, it’s a matter of a century or two left before the high tech comes to a halt.

> Nate hagens work on resource depletion

May be correct, or not, but it's not that connected to either "will aliens contact us" or "will AI give us scifi future" or "when do the stars go out".

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