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The Universe As We Know It May End Sooner Than Expected (hackaday.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

Clickbaity title. The estimated time until Higgs field decay has been changed from 10^794^ years to 10^790^ years. Presumably there's some tiny chance of it happening today, but practically we can just continue worrying about all the regular stuff that is about to kill us all.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

ugh i was hoping it would be before this election

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

That's a huge difference, the estimate became 10,000 times smaller.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Its more like 0.5% difference.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Not really, the new value is 0.0001% of the old.

Just because the number has barely fewer digits doesn't mean it's barely smaller

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (3 children)

It is, but there are still quite a lot of zeros left.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

it's still a concern for biden

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

It’s like if I became 10,000 times less attractive. Same thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Is it more than 3?

[–] [email protected] 50 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Also, from what I understand, we wouldn't see it coming (as the decay would be spreading at the speed of light), and everything would be over before our senses could ever detect anything out of the ordinary.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

So, if I'm reading it right, everything would just rip apart at the speed of light due to a change in mass because of the Higgs field transitioning to a lower state?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago

😍

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Guess I'm not spending that Christmas with my family after all...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

we'll find out who was right then