science

By well-known mathematical physicist John C. Baez. This refutes the article that floated around a few days ago saying the universe would end sooner than expected. That article was based on the premise that dead stars (big chunks of matter that aren't black holes) emit Hawking radiation the way that black holes do, and that the matter in the universe would eventually decay through this mechanism. The linked blog post says that the premised is wrong, and matter in normal space doesn't give off Hawking radiation. I guess in 10^74^ years (iirc) we will find out who was right!