I dunno all life today is an example of an unbroken lineage back to the begining of all life in existence (on earth), yes most branches wither and die but there’s also no such thing as a ‘new’ species, just the latest permutation or branch of one that was there before.
He’s not wrong. I’d be surprised if we had any more than 2,000 years left, the way things are going. And most of that is time taken for the small groups scattered across the planet after the bigger catastrophies to die off.

to be fair Tim is talking about civilization, not Homo sapiens
Funny that this is some profound statement
Oh, is that what everyone’s reacting to? Just the headline? Yeah, weird that so many people were not previously aware of the basic facts of life.
Clinging to life is survivorship bias 🙃
Even if we somehow manage to fix our political garbage, go full solarpunk, move to mars before the Sun explodes, and start invading other solar systems, there is only so much free energy left in the universe, the end is certain.
Do you know anything about black holes or dwarf stars? Like roughly how long they last? Also you seem to think heat death is for sure and it’s not. Not at all. It’s the current most popular theory but crunch and rip are still fully possible.
Silly scifi goth
Well, I have worked with Kerr and Schwarzschild black holes in the past but only for looking at stable orbits around them and not accounting for evaporation.
Yeah, I know that it takes a few billion years for a black hole to evaporate or to a dwarf to finally die. So what? It’s simple thermodynamics, you don’t even need to know how any celestial body behaves at all, the universe dies for the same reason your coffee cools down.
…big RIP
Based on what we know right now, I agree. There is more about physics that we don’t understand than what we do, and who knows what might be harnessed!
Humans won’t be doing any of the harnessing, of course. That species is fucked.
Was posting on im14andthisisdeep?
Yea… Probably some felonious fraudster convincing people they can be exalted to godhood… Own their own planet… Impregnate all their wives. Populate the planet with their spiritual children.
Yea… Sounds legit. 💯
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Very valid points. I’m guessing humanity will disappear much sooner: we are our own worst enemy. At the rate we are going it may well be over in a couple of hundred years.
Michel Mayor, Nobel laureate in physics, discusses important questions such as “dude, wouldn’t it be cool if we could send people to live on other planets on the far side of the galaxy?” and “if there are aliens, what do you think they’re like?”
I love J R Gott’s application of the Copernican Principle to the observation of the human race (and anything else). The chances are that you are an average observer of the human race (or anything else) and exist in the 95% range, which gives us between a few thousand and a million years left.
We are almost definitely not going to last. But we will almost definitely last longer than reality TV.Noble laureates, the most abundant source of opinions found so far.
I’ll take his over most other louder ones like Elon Musk.
How about neither?
you can always go out and touch grass…
i mean avoiding opinions is hard on the Internet.
We get it. You’re a contrarian.
No, just this thought belongs in Shower Thoughts.
This “Nobel Laureate” needs to check his hubris and condescension.
I find it always funny how people defend every platitude that comes from a decorated scientist because he got amplified through “pop sci” media.
This is exactly how we got people like Feynman, Montagnier or Pauling.
I don’t think this is scientific or ethical in the end.
He just sounds like a smart old dude who’s tired of people asking him open-ended questions about the end of humanity.









