> I'm not sure either. Of course, as Dyson noted, we have time -- and as
> I am inclined to believe, the universe may very well be open anyway.
Yes, people who get stressed by the expansion of the universe should
learn to relax. But not too much... :-)
> There might be other things involved to. Perhaps, on a global scale,
> we are not limited to topological changes... For instance, perhaps
> (and someone else has raised this possibility; so I make no claims to
> originality here:) we can "tear" off a region in such a way as to
> achieve just what Dyson was after.
Yes, this is an interesting problem. Mitch made a suggestion a month
ago on the transhuman list for a way of creating a closed
mini-universe, but I think it wouldn't work in its proposed form (just
an idea, Mitch: what about a non-spherical geometry?).
> Another intriguing possibility in an open universe is that entropy and
> order can both increase -- in absolute NOT relative amounts.:) This
> is Layzer's idea. He might be wrong, but we should see if there's
> anything to his idea.
I think it sounds reasonable. Divide the universe into two sides, and
use one as an entropy dump. If it gets too "hot", wait for a while
until it has expanded, and then fump more entropy into it. Of course,
I suppose this would run into the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) effect
on a cosmic scale.... :-)
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y