If there is nothing left, does time pass? Does it pass but is meaningless? Does it no longer exist?
The same question goes for space. Is there any size to the nothingness? To go further when you have notions like inflation, can you have nothing that is increasing in volume? That would suggest a change in state an thus a sense of not yet ended.
It would be a weird thing for nothingness to change state. It seems like fertile soil for sci-fi. Imagine if space itself was kind of Turing complete and once the noise of matter ended it could start the real work, which of course would be simulating the next universe.
That was kind of my intuition as well, similarly for time, if there was no distinction between long and short amounts of time, an instant would be the same as eons. If the big bang was improbable but possible it would just happen. The fact that we are here is suggestive that is possible.
It’s a beautiful theory, and I’d like to believe in it, but with ubiquitous virtual particles, the last particle in the universe would never be alone to reject time
I think that's it. Ad a layman I don't understand how the final transition (final hawking radiation) then tells the rest of the universe "I'm done" similar to a sprint retro!
A fun tool to think around such things are Penrose diagrams. Personally I'm a little dubious of strong claims of what will happen in the distant future since we have such incomplete models of physics today. It takes GUTs to predict the future.
That question makes no sense in terms of this discussion. The heat death of the universe means that there is no "after", just as there was no "before" the Big Bang.
The actual concept of time does not exist (at least in my humble year 12 physics understanding and having read Brief History Of Time a long time ago :) )
> having read Brief History Of Time a long time ago :)
It pains me to say this, because it is a masterpiece of vulgarisation, putting arcane physics and cosmology within reach of (still decently-educated) normal people, but it is very outdated in a lot of respects. It badly needs something else.
I found some of Carlo Rovelli’s books to be quite compelling, but they are more focused on the topic of time and space-time. Not really the universe in the same way as Hawking’s were.
