Of Supernovae and Caesar’s Last Breath
A recent article in the New York Times described scientists observing a supernova in action [LINK]. I couldn’t help but be amazed at the science in this article. It also reminded me of some other facts about life, space and myself which are not always top of mind.
Essentially the article describes how scientists were able to observe a supernova from the very beginning of the process. It’s very rare to have a telescope pointed at the right spot in the sky in order to catch this. Normally astronomers see the afterglow of the collapse which might be months or years old. It’s kind of like the Universe’s Funniest Home Videos except replace "Funniest" with "Fascinating" or "Scientifically Significant".
This event took place 88 million light years away. A light year is of course the distance light travels in an Earth year (about 6 x 10^12 miles). In more meaningful terms; this event, relative to time on Earth, happened 88 million years ago and light from the event has traveled the vast distance across space and is starting to reach us now. You have a window of a few months to capture the data with a telescope. What an amazing thing that we here we are 88 million years later, capturing the event in our telescopes.
The Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. the universe itself is estimated at 13.5 billion years. In that time matter/energy is neither created nor destroyed and doesn’t go anywhere. It hangs around changing form. Entropy is conserved.
By that reasoning, each and every particle in your body, is roughly the age of the universe. I’m not 100% certain of the accuracy of that statement but I think a more firm statement is that the information (entropy) contained in the particles that you are made up of has remained constant and is at least the same age as the universe. Note I said particle, not necessarily atom.
We also have the old example of Caesar’s last breath. What happened to the air from Caesar’s last breath? Answer: nothing, it’s still around. If you do the math involved in the number of molecules he breathed out, combined with the time since then, assuming a uniform distribution, it can be shown that with each and every breath we’re breathing in the SAME atoms he breathed out. [LINK]. Rebeca Watson [LINK] made the observation that given enough time passed, with each and every breath we’re breathing the flatulence of everyone that’s ever lived. Oh dear. I think I need a mint.
So at different levels, we’re different ages. Whilst I’m now 33, at the molecular level I’m thousands of years old. At the atomic level, I’m probably as old as the Earth, ruling out the possibility that my atoms arrived via meteorite. At the particle level, my matter dates all the way back to 300,000 years after the big bang. At the Entropy level, I’m as old as the universe. Not only that but that but my Entropy will live forever.
This sort of thinking may also indicate I may be having a mid-life crisis of some kind.
Keeping on topic, Fran, have a read of this…
How long does a man live after all?
A thousand days or only one?
One week or a few centuries?
How long does a man spend living or dying
and what do we mean when we say gone forever?
Adrift in such preoccupations, we seek clarification.
We can go to the philosophers
but they will weary of our questions.
We can go to the priests and rabbis
but they might be busy with administrations.
So, how long does a man live after all?
And how much does he live while he lives?
We fret and ask so many questions –
then when it comes to us
the answer is so simple after all.
A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us,
for as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams,
for as long as we ourselves live,
holding memories in common, a man lives.
His lover will carry his scent, his touch:
his children will carry the weight of his love.
One friend will carry his arguements,
another will hum his favourite tunes,
another will still share his terrors.
And the days will pass with baffled faces,
then the weeks, then the months,
then there will be a day when no question is asked,
and the knots of grief will loosen in the stomach
and the puffed faces will calm.
And on that day he will not have ceased
but will have ceased to be separated by death.
How long does a man live after all?
A man lives so may different lengths of time.
Keep taking the valium Fran. Those are some deep thoughts you’re having! T x
OK, Francis has embarassed me by entrapping my hapless mind with his captcha. Now it’s my turn.
“Entropy is conserved” – actually, the second law of thermodynamics clearly tells us that the entropy of a closed system increases. Entropy can be seen as a measure of disorder and systems tend to a greater state of disorder.
I am sure you must have been thinking of the first law of thermodynamics, which has to do with the conservation of mass and matter, to which Eisntein ammended E=MCsquared.
On entropy, for example, heat will flow from a hot surface to a cold, and in the process increase the entropy of the system. Heat will not spontanously flow from a cold surface to a hot surface, unless energy is applied (e.g. through an AC compressor) which in turn increases entropy even further.
So by this law of incresing entropy, the universe will continue to expand and burn itself out into a dim, dilute soup of subatomic particles. The particles that make us, Caesar and will be floating in all directions through space a few billion years from now. How’s that for a cheery outcome!
Anyhow, this is how my chem eng education comes in handy to me nowadays