The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)

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Audiobooks
14
1

Description

This brilliant, witty, engaging book by renowned cosmologist Dr. Katherine J. Mack takes readers through five ways the Universe might end. I did not narrate the official audiobook; I have Katie's permission to use her work as a tonal sample.

Vocal Characteristics

Language

English

Voice Age

Middle Aged (35-54)

Accents

North American (US General American - GenAM)

Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
An ultra high energy explosion or the catastrophic final evaporation of a black hole or even an unfortunate quantum tunneling event. More on these later could set it off. If this happens anywhere in the cosmos, it creates an unstoppable apocalyptic cascade that nothing in the universe can withstand. It starts with a bubble wherever the event occurs, a tiny bubble of true vacuum forms. This bubble contains within it a drastically different kind of space one in which the processes of physics follow different laws and the particles of nature are rearranged at the moment it forms. It's an infinitesimal speck, but it is already surrounded by a bubble wall of extremely high energy that could incinerate anything it touches. Then the bubble begins to expand because the true vacuum is the more stable state. The universe quote unquote prefers it and will revert to it. If given the slightest chance, just like a pebble will roll down a slope if it's placed on one. As soon as the bubble appears, the Higgs field all around, it is suddenly being shaken down to the valley floor. It's as though that first event knocks free every precariously balanced pebble near it and then the avalanche spreads more and more space succumbs to the true vacuum state. Anything unfortunate enough to be in the bubble's path is first hit by the intensely energetic bubble wall approaching it about the speed of light. Then it undergoes a process that could only be called total and complete dissociation as the forces that previously held particles together in atoms and nuclei can no longer function. Maybe it's for the best that you don't see it coming.