Sci-Fi Humour

One of Isaac Asimov’s tales is titled The Final Question. Well into the future, the very hi-tech inhabitants of the future are worried. By the second law of thermodynamics! Or rather, the implied consequence of that law.

 

Without getting into the details of what the law is, let’s focus on the consequence that is scary. The law implies that everything in the universe will eventually cool down and decay. In that setup, no free energy will exist to drive any further processes. It is called the “heat death of the universe”.

 

Or as TS Eliot poetically put it:

“This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.”

 

So these hi-tech inhabitants ask their cosmic supercomputer: How can the second law of thermodynamics be overturned?

 

The supercomputer starts working on the question. Eventually, long after all life has ended, the stars have died out, and as nothing new emerges in the universe, and the universe is on the cusp of the gloomy end predicted by the second law of thermodynamics, the supercomputer (which was still running) finally figures out the answer, and announces it:

“Let there be light!”

Whereupon a fresh, new universe is started and the cycle repeats itself.