Could a Galactic Civilization Survive the End of the Universe?

银河系文明能够在宇宙终结之后幸存下来吗？


Galactic civilizations looking to postpone the end of the universe may be wise to stock up on a few stars like our sun.

想要推迟宇宙终结的那天到来的时间的银河系文明可能是明智的，这样就可以储备一些像我们的太阳一样的恒星。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


If you're reading this, then you're probably a 21st-century human with only a sort of naval-gazing curiosity about the end of the universe. But it's also possible that you, gentle reader, are an immortal member of a galactic civilization in a distant future. As you stare down the cosmic apocalypse, you've paused to examine some ancient internet writings for possible answers.

如果你在读这篇文章，那么你很有可能是一个喜欢放眼宇宙，对宇宙终结十分感兴趣的21世纪的人类。但是亲爱的读者，你可能是在遥远的将来诞生的银河系文明的一个不朽的成员。当你看着宇宙毁灭的时候，你可以停下来去仔细寻找一些古老的互联网上发表的文章，从中可以找到相关的答案。

If you're the former, then have a listen to the recent Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast episode "Galactic Civilization's End." But if you really are an immortal transhuman from the end of time, then hang on for some possible ideas from the show.

如果你是前者，那么请听听最新一档名为“震惊你的心灵”播客节目——“银河文明的终结”。但是，如果你真的是一个不朽的超人，在银河系文明终结之后，你可以继续从节目中获得一些有益的收获。

Bear in mind that the podcast hosts recorded this episode during the early 21st century and therefore were limited by the scope of current science and technology. Meanwhile, you're part of a galaxy-spanning civilization that can harness the powers of entire stars. But who knows? Perhaps they hit upon a hypothetical solution that you missed.

请牢记这件事：播客主持人在21世纪初记录了这个节目，因此这档节目受到了当前科学和技术范围的限制。与此同时，你是一个可以利用所有恒星力量的跨星系的文明的一分子。但谁知道呢？ 也许他们偶然发现了你没有想到的假定的解决方案。

Back in 2018, humans were unsure exactly how the universe might eventually snuff itself out. First, they had a couple of older notions: the big freeze and the big crunch. In an expanding universe, the idea was that either things would expand forever or eventually spring back and contract. If it just kept expanding, the heat death of the universe would ensue. If it contracted, everything would crash back down into a fiery singularity.

让我们回到现在的2018年，人们不确定宇宙会如何毁灭掉。首先他们有很多旧有的观念：大冻结和大挤压。在膨胀的宇宙中，任何东西要么会无限地膨胀下去，要么最终会收缩。如果它继续膨胀，宇宙热量的丧失殆尽会继而发生。如果它坍缩了，所有的一切都会碰撞挤压到一起，成为一个“奇点”。

As Robert and Joe discuss, physicist Freeman Dyson proposed a few strategies back in 1979. To counter the big crunch, he wondered if a highly advanced civilization might be able to "break open a closed universe and change the topology of space-time so that only a part of it would collapse and another part of it would expand forever." At the time he contended that such an advanced civilization would be able to roll with eternal expansion as well, but a later development changed everything.

正如罗伯特和乔所讨论的那样，物理学家弗里曼戴森在1979年提出了一些策略。为了应对这个大危机，他想知道一个非常先进的文明是否能够“打破封闭的宇宙并改变时空的拓扑结构，使得宇宙只有一部分会崩溃，另一部分会永远膨胀下去。”当时他认为这样一个先进的文明也能够以永恒的膨涨为条件一直存在下去，但后来的研究推翻了这个结论。

Because in 1998, humans discovered that universal expansion wasn't only ongoing, it was also accelerating. BBC writer Adam Becker reached out to Dyson in 2015 on the matter and Dyson said that he's less optimistic, and the rosiest possibility was that the acceleration will slow down on its own. Otherwise, the universe will simply become too spread out and too cold.

译文在1998年，人类发现宇宙的膨胀不会永远进行下去，而且它的膨胀速度是处于加速状态。BBC的作家亚当.贝克和戴森联系上，一起研究这个问题。戴森说：他对此不是很乐观，最乐观的事是这种加速会变慢。否则，整个宇宙将会变得太大以至于变得太冷。

In 2018, astrophysicist Dan Hooper pondered the question of a galactic civilization's long-term survival and contended that annihilation might at least be postponed with a little hoarding. In the same way that a doomsday prepper might collect and save canned goods, so too would a highly advanced civilization hoard up on suns. They could yank manageable mid-sized stars (such as Earth's own sun) and drag them to regions of space for safekeeping.

在2018年天体物理学家丹.霍珀思考了“银河系文明”的长久存续的问题，认为宇宙的毁灭时刻的到来至少可能因为某种小小的“手段”的作用会被推迟。就像为世界末日到来做好充足准备的人可以收集和储存罐头食品一样，高度发达的文明也能够囤积太阳。他们可以掠夺可管理的中等大小的恒星（例如地球自己的太阳），并将它们拖到特定的太空区域以便妥善保管。

If star-jacking isn't your style, physicist Alan Guth – who, by the way, developed cosmic inflation theory – told the BBC that a galactic civilization might be capable of creating its own pocket universe. Escape into that and you might just avoid the fall of the previous universe.

如果“劫持恒星”不是你的行事风格，物理学家艾伦.古斯发展了宇宙膨胀理论。他告诉BBC说：银河文明可能有能力创造自己的口袋宇宙。逃到这个宇宙里，你就有可能从前一个崩溃的宇宙中逃脱出来并幸存下去。

These are just a handful of schemes you might employ to avoid cosmic stagnation – and they don't even contend with the big change or the big rip, in which the universe you know and love either cools due to an emergent low-temperature vacuum bubble or is shredded by dense, phantom energy.

这些只是你可能用来避免宇宙终结来毁灭自己的少数几种方案。这些方案甚至可能经不起巨大变化的考验，你所熟知和深爱的宇宙要么因为突然产生的低温真空泡沫而冷却，要么就会被被密集的幻象能量撕碎。

Look, you may rule as star masters of a distant future, but there might be no winning this thing after all. The universe, as we understand it, will last an incredibly long time before it changes, rips, crushes or wears thin. But conditions are going to get pretty dire out there. Let's hope you have a few stars set aside when that happens.

看，你可能成为遥远将来的星球统治者，但是面对这种事，没有人能成为赢家。宇宙，正如我们所理解的那样，将会在发生改变、撕裂和压碎之前继续存在很长很长时间，但是结果终归是悲惨的。让我们祝愿你在宇宙终结之后能够继续保有少数一些恒星作伴吧。

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处