Universal Death Clock (in Minecraft)
People have been making clocks with redstone for as long as it has been around. Of all the clocks I've seen, this one is probably the longest-running one ever - a redstone clock that will pulse a signal to an iron door, opening it approximately when the universe is expected to stop existing!
spumwack has created a ridiculously long contraption that may very well outlast us all. Check it out!
One thing. There are two other possible fates of the universe (why yes I do like astronomy how'd you know)
One: It grows so massive that it's like, "Hey galaxies I missed you long time no see" and collapses. RIP universe.
Two: It goes on forever, but stops expanding. If this happens, time will slow down and eventually stop. RIP universe, but not as painful. Like being injected with that stuff that painlessly kills things. Sort of.
Otherwise, this is amazing. 'Scuze me, I better go invent a time machine. Nah, I'll make one in the future and time travel back to give it to me.
Way to go!
1 Google year is (8706 x 10^100) hours.
If for the sake of argument the server were running on a 500 watt computer
(Yes I know that the computer would probably never truly use that much energy)
The computer would require 4,380,000 x 10^100 watt hours of energy to operate.
Now lets assume the cost of energy is $0.15 a watt hour and it rises 5 cents every 5 years (this is probably being far over generous)
This clock would, to my estimation cost about (2.5 x 10^203) dollars.
Some folks do smell colors -- look up "synesthesia".
Incidentally, this clock could be done in somewhat fewer stages by using droppers instead of hoppers for the multipliers. But then you'd miss a fair bit of the interesting stuff in the first few stages. Maybe just for that long section of black-hole evaporation (and possibly proton decay, which he didn't mention)....
And yeah, there are indeed various other possibilities for the end of the universe, but AFAIK, this one (the "heat death") does seem to be where the current evidence is pointing. That might well change if/when we manage to build the Theory of Everything (by unifying relativity and quantum mechanics).
I almost forgot that this was started with a minecraft video...
Heck, we measure time in years -- the orbits of our planet around the sun -- and even before we get to the red-giant phase, the planet will be drifting enough to change the length of that orbit. If any creature managed to live long enough to be affected by such things, we'd dang well call that creature immortal. The only way we can even think about such time periods it through exponential notation -- actually visualizing that length of time is not possible for a human brain.
For those who are interested in exploring such timescales, I recommend reading science fiction, especially certain works by Greg Bear and Stephen Baxter.
Perhaps mankind will draw together the very last of its resources to make sure this clock sees its way to the end.
Same here, gives me the creeps, messes with my mind O.O
YES
If mankind (or what remains of it) does that, it has more problems than an unopened iron door.
It's the smartest one of those, too. I hadn't even considered any device like it.