Talk:Timeline of the far future/Archive 5

What counts as "far future"?
To me, the 4th millennium is too near to be considered "far future". Maybe we should develop consensus to define a limit. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 23:35, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And what is up with the template distressing article? 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 23:37, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * All the future millennia articles were reduced to nothing by cruft hunters. So as of now the far future is whatever is beyond what deletionists consider worthy of note. As for depressing article, well that was a common topic of discussion on this page until that warning was put up. Used to include a link to The Last Question to assuage existential angst but that was taken down for COPYVIO.  Serendi pod ous  23:44, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

The length of the dab header is beyond silly
Does anyone object if I trim down the excess verbiage? Viriditas (talk) 08:53, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I removed some redundant words, but feel free to shorten it more. --mfb (talk) 11:03, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Much better! Thanks! Viriditas (talk) 23:17, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

what happend to the 4th millenium article
i used to read the 4th millenium article, but suddenly it got removed. 2601:249:8181:3980:D595:DE1B:EE75:6328 (talk) 17:33, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

PAGE ]]) 18:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * See Talk:Timeline_of_the_far_future/Archive_4. --Ahecht ([[User talk:Ahecht|TALK

Technology and culture
The icon used for technology- and culture-relaed items is much taller than the other icons. Which icon should replace it for aesthetic purposes? –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 20:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. How would do you like — ? After some trial and error, it seems that anything larger than a bust figure would look extra small. --173.75.31.249 (talk) 23:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Acceptable — it's square and shows a human figure. What do others think? –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 00:47, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm fine.  Serendi pod ous  12:04, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Move the 2nd & 3rd paragraph in the leading section to page body
It looks like the two paragraphs in the leading section "All projections of the future of Earth ... and star systems from galaxies." "Physicists expect that matter... the formation of Boltzmann brains." apply to only predictions around the astrophysics & particle physics domain. Shall we move it to the "Earth, the Solar System and the universe" section? --173.75.31.249 (talk) 22:44, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Guinness lease
re: ... I agree it would be far more concerning to humanity thousands of years hence to go extinct than to observe a change or renewal of one building's tenants (assuming it didn't happen long prior of course).

But that isn't really the criterion by which we should consider WP:UNDUE attributes, since unlike historical events all entries on this page are proposed or hypothetical, so their theoretical import at that future time is moot (although some are more certain than others). Instead, this page is really a collation of sources organised by their assertions about the far future (just as most of the rest of Wikipedia isn't presenting truth about the past and present, but rather presenting other people's claims about such as documented in reliable sources). As an example -- presuming that you were referring to the next row down when you mentioned extinction, note the verbiage "formulation of the controversial [...] argument"; this row is about a claim, not an event (since Wikipedia is not a crystal ball and thus can know nothing about human extinction as fact).

Anyway, I'm not too insistent on the Guinness thing staying in; it would have fit better in an article about the pertinent century or millennium, but those redirect here now as described above. I just thought it was an interesting contrast to offer readers, since mundane things are eternal even if leases or species aren't. Arlo James Barnes 07:19, 3 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that it can be interesting, but there is so little chance that any company of our current time will be working in 10,000 years from now, that this Guinness lease seems to be just marketing, not a real thing that can possible happen in so distant future. Maybe it can be placed into WP:Unusual articles, if there is an article about a lease itself. Artem.G (talk) 07:55, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 January 2019 and 10 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ryanpolson21.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Digits
"Although listed in years for convenience, the numbers beyond this point are so vast that their digits would remain unchanged regardless of which conventional units they were listed in, be they nanoseconds or star lifespans."

Please expand on this. A very large number multiplied or divided by 10 billion will be 10 billion times larger or smaller. --The Vital One (talk) 04:42, 22 January 2022 (UTC)


 * A number as large as those with that footnote is negligibly affected by becoming 10 billion times smaller. The smallest such number in the article would go from 1 followed by 100 septillion zeroes to 1 followed by (100 septillion - 10) zeroes. Firefangledfeathers 04:51, 22 January 2022 (UTC)


 * To elaborate further, no unit exists that has any practical physical application can be chosen that meaningfully changes the representation of the number. The integer and stacked exponents for the time value would not noticeably change within any reasonable rounding error no matter what unit is chosen. For example (and adding to Firefangledfeathers explanation above), there are an estimated 10^97 elementary particles in the entire universe. So even dividing (or multiplying) by that massive number -- perhaps among the largest known physical quantities -- only subtracts (or adds) 97 zeroes from 100 septillion. The units really don't matter. Rsbaker0 (talk) 22:46, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Earth's core freezing speeding up
Can anyone find a source that converts this new finding into mm per year?  Serendi pod ous  19:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Redirect
The page 7777 redirects here, but the number 7777 is not mentioned in the list. Can anyone provide context for this? Roostery123 (talk) 04:20, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * For numbers higher than 1000, the standard is to assume the AD year date.  Serendi pod ous  13:03, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

"6100s" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect 6100s and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 11 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. MB 04:32, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

"XXXIII century" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect XXXIII century and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 20 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. –Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 21:22, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

"Draft:5000 (year)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Draft:5000 (year) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 20 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 21:48, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

"Timeline of the far future 2" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Timeline of the far future 2 and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 21 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Regards, SONIC   678   17:37, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

"5100" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect 5100 and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 24 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 64.229.88.43 (talk) 03:37, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Xth century redirects under discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect 100th century and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 28 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Regards, SONIC   678   00:24, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Procedural note: Sonic678 has nominated many "Xth century" redirects to this article for discussion / deletion (e.g. 53rd century, 80th century, etc.). Please see Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 28 for the full list. SnowFire (talk) 01:26, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

"nuclear power"
Somebody seems to be using this as a list of arbitrary isotopes with long hakf-lives. The reason for this is unclear. Many if these have nothing at all to do eith nuclear power 80.41.28.222 (talk) 23:16, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Which is weird because we already have two articles for that: List of radioactive nuclides by half-life and List of nuclides.  Serendi pod ous  00:14, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Stupid spacecraft statistics
I got suspicious, the moment I read that practically every spacecraft heading out of the solar system is going to have an encounter with Alpha Centauri, according to the first few rows in the section. Um, no.

There are some really misleading statistics regarding the spacecrafts Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 that are on their way out of the solar system, starting with the row that says that in 16,900 years "Voyager 1 passes within 3.5 light-years of Proxima Centauri". Well, maybe so, but given that when Voyager 1 was launched it was within 4.25 LY of Proxima Centauri, that is by no stretch a "flyby" which is what readers are going to assume that sentence means. In fact, half of all possible solar escape trajectories will bring a craft closer to Proxima for a while, before starting to recede again; namely, every trajectory headed for a point on the celestial hemisphere of which Proxima is the zenith (assuming straight line post-heliopause). Those "passes-within" statistics are true, but not worth remarking on, very roughly in the way that the correlation between U.S. spending on space technology and suicides by strangulation is true, but not worth adding to either article.

A better and more comprehensible source is the writeup in MIT Technology Review based on the same source currently cited in the article at note 167, which gives a much better interpretation of the data in the paper and names a completely different set of stars that might be considered "flybys". Which just goes to underline the wisdom in Wikipedia's guideline recommending the use of WP:SECONDARY over WP:PRIMARY sources. Mathglot (talk) 02:22, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It looks like the researchers are defining a "close encounter" as sub-0.3 pc, which seems reasonable, and I would be fine even extending that to 1 ly and nixing anything outwith that range. Primefac (talk) 09:08, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a great writeup and I definitely agree that these items should be changed. I understand why this happened, but I didn't drive by Paris because I drove from Amsterdam to Rome. Excellent that you found a good citation for this! This does mean the list will be significantly decreased, if we only list Pioneer 10/HIP117795, Voyager 1/TYC3135-52-1, Pioneer 11/TYC 992-192-1, and maybe Voyager 2/Ross 248. Are there other sources we can cite for notable "flybys" not listed here? ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 09:11, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's exactly the point; your trip was not a driveby, even though your distance from Paris decreased for a while down to a minimum somewhere around Liège ("Look out the passenger window; can you see the Eiffel Tower?") and then started increasing again after that. Mathglot (talk) 09:12, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and removed those four entries from the table whilst we discuss potential additions and other modifications. Primefac (talk) 09:17, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

"Nanoseconds" vs "Planck times"
The purpose of the footnote is to give some idea (any idea) of the scale of the time involved to the average person. The average person does not know what a Planck time is. When I originally wrote the note, I chose nanoseconds because, even though it was a fairly large unit by the standards we're dealing with, it was the smallest unit you could expect the average person to know.  Serendi pod ous  10:37, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that nanoseconds is a nicer example in this context. ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 06:28, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Arguing about what unit of time to use in a footnote specifically about a scenario in which that unit would be irrelevant would be so inherently funny, I'm kind of tempted to just do it for the sake of it. At any rate, I do suspect that Planck time is a lot less obscure now than it was ten years ago, solely because "The Shortest Measurable Unit of Time" is a way too compelling video premise for all those physics-centered popsci YouTube channels to pass up on, but just to reiterate, whatever. Dr. Duh 🩺 (talk) 06:47, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You're correct in a sense, though never underestimate how little knowledge the average person has about physics. Very few people know what "Planck time" is, and very few people know what "nanoseconds" are! However, I expect "nanoseconds" is measurably more well-known, and regardless, "nanoseconds" would likely be more easy to comprehend at a glimpse even for people unfamiliar with the term. ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 06:57, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that actually is a good point. Even a reader that is barely literate and only exposed to anything physics-related by way of marketing slogans would instantly associate the nano-prefix with "very small" and stellar lifetimes with "very large". The counterargument would be that the concept of Planck time is more interesting than just a fraction of a second, and this article is basically the poster child of pages people visit specifically to learn about weird stuff, but I realize I'm in the process of betraying my own premise here... Dr. Duh 🩺 (talk) 08:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think our job is to trigger deep Wikipedia dives, and even if it is, I think this list will already do that plenty with all the other fascinating articles it links to ;) ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 09:06, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So can I change it back?  Serendi pod ous  18:07, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I believe you were free to revert it from the start, but I've gone ahead and changed it back to nanoseconds for you :) ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 09:17, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Removal of nuclear list
Hey People I am Ben you crazily wanted to merge all human histories and forget the nuclear stuff people should focus on nuclear power and doing this will save the enviroemnt so please revert the history to my old revision — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CD:4101:5520:7875:5EB7:7A08:44B1 (talk) 20:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Highlighting nuclear as a separate category when everything else goes into one of two big lists would probably be WP:UNDUE; we can't "focus" on nuclear power on this page out of proportion to its prominence in mainstream sources that talk about the far future. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 20:47, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * We can keep nuclear content if we move it into one the big lists; are there specific items that you want to save from the nuclear list, or are you asking to save the whole list? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 20:47, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I added a link to List of radioactive nuclides by half-life  Serendi pod ous  10:06, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Slight change suggested
At 2.8 billion years, the list states that this is the "High estimate until all remaining life goes extinct.". I suggest a change to "High estimate until all remaining Earth life goes extinct.". סשס Grimmchild.  He/him, probably  10:36, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Good point.  Serendi pod ous  11:12, 18 January 2023 (UTC)