How will the world end? – New Materials Zone

Question: How will the world end?
- Keywords:
  end of the world
Asked by inkysquidy to Alexander, Josh, Serena, Simone, Stuart on 16 Jun 2013.
- Simone Sturniolo answered on 16 Jun 2013:
  
  If by “world” we mean our planet Earth – reasonably, it will end in 5 billion years, when the Sun will inflate itself to become a much bigger star, a red giant. It will not really explode – only stars who are bigger than the Sun to begin with do that – but it will be enough to destroy its inner planets: Mercury, Venus, and likely the Earth, which will be either vaporized, engulfed by the Sun’s fireball, or anyway rendered dry, burnt and lifeless.
  If by “world” you mean the entire universe, we’re not sure whether it will ever end. Some think that it will, some think that it won’t – it basically all depends on how “heavy”, or rather dense, the universe is. The reasoning goes as follows: the Big Bang created our universe and pushed its various parts in different directions, but gravity tends to bring them together again. If the strength of the “Bang” wins, our universe lives on forever. If gravity wins, it crumbles back on itself and turns into a black hole. Either way, it’s not going to be very good – while it’s obvious why having the entire universe smashed in a black hole is not a very good thing, the other option would be bad as well, as the stars would end up burning up all their fuel and shut off one after another. In the end the universe would only be a very silent, dark, and big lump of nothing! But these things would happen in so many years it would hardly be a problem for us humans – we’re talking billions and billions of years. If mankind were to last that much, at that point we would be so freakishly advanced we could probably handle pretty much anything anyway!
- Josh Makepeace answered on 16 Jun 2013:
  
  Wow!! That’s a big question, inkysquidy. I think Simone has covered the main answers to your question. I guess there are probably some other things which could happen which might mean that we could become extinct, so for us the world would end!! Something like a huge asteroid/comet hitting the earth, or a supervolcano eruption, I guess.
  
  Now you’ve got me reading about supervolcanos!
- Alexander Munnoch answered on 16 Jun 2013:
  
  Where to start on this cheery topic 🙂
  
  If by “world” you mean the planet then I would be inclined to a agree with Simone for the most part – the Earth is likely to “end” when our Sun or the universe we exist in ends. There is also the possibility of asteroid/comet collision!
  
  However, if you mean the human race and the world as we know it? I’d take a stab at: volcano eruptions resulting in extreme climate change, solar flares rendering all electronics useless or an incurable airbourne virus.
  
  On the other hand…
  Popular desire dictates it is by zombie apocalypse – there are loads of books and computer games about this!
- Stuart Archer answered on 17 Jun 2013:
  
  If you mean the planet itself, Simone definitely covered the major points (thanks for that 😉 )
  
  If you mean ‘the world as we know it’, then depressingly I reckon that humans will probably be responsible for the end of the world, maybe through climate change altering the way life on the planet works, or through something more apocalyptic like nuclear war or some kind of virus. Maybe the Terminator movies had it right, and the machines will rise up and destroy us! We’re pretty good at adapting to changing circumstances though as a race, so I reckon that human beings will be around in some shape or form for a long time to come.
  
  Now I must eat pie to cheer myself up… 🙂

Question: How will the world end?

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