On Wed, 12 May 2004, Greg Morrow wrote: > John Klein wondered aloud to the group: > >entropy > >will eventually succeed in dissociating every fundamental particle in the > >universe from every other fundamental particle. > > No, it won't, at least not under the Standard Model. Which is internally inconsistent at high energies... > BSM theories that include proton decay can change that outlook, but given > that the experimental lower limit on proton lifetime is 10^33 years, you're > looking at a few umptyfantasticajillion years to reduce the universe to a > uniform sea of low-energy photons and neutrinos. > > I'm just saying. Kind of thought quantum black holes will come along and eventually eat everything and we'll end up just a sea of radiation. Note that neutrinos apparently have mass and are presumably subject to decay. I forget if the lightest supersymmetric particle may be lighter than neutrinos anyway. Also note it's (afaik) totally up in the air whether there will be a Big Crunch due to the dark energy and whatever else the hell is out there. As you say, not something to worry about now.