Talk:2972: Helium Synthesis

I had imagined that, rather than destroying the entire universe, they just somehow made a big bang INSIDE THE MACHINE that they could somehow obtain helium from safely. 141.101.109.166 07:34, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I get the impression that, like an abbreviated version of the cyclical Big Bounce hypothesis, they did indeed recreate the conditions for a (sufficiently similar) universe.

The question as to whether they obliterated their current one (in a short-sighted and paperclip-maximiser-like effort that disregards the safety of their current existence) or create a new instance of universe-within-the-universe (like 2688: Bubble Universes, presumably with some way of bringing the stuff out) is left open.

If the latter, it could be that the reason why each universe's helium-users are chronically short of helium is that their universe has been used as a source for the next-universe-out's helium by the equivalent outwards recursion of the very same people. (The former would imply a kind of The Last Question situation, only not with the same timing.) 162.158.74.118 08:25, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you probably couldn't create a big bang in the lab capable of replaying the events of the current universe exactly without obliterating at least, as the explanation says, all the closest galaxies. If new inflation pushes the existing universe apart, it's still smeared quite thinly outside the new expanding edge.

You think in such three-dimensional terms - and I don't mean it as a praise, just like the Borg Queen. -- Hkmaly (talk) 03:07, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

But I really like the idea, it's kind of like Rick's car battery in Rick and Morty, one of my favorite episodes. 172.70.210.4 08:34, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

What if inflation doesn't disturb the matter and space around it, it just shrinks the apparent size of the matter inside it to create the expanded space relative to observers inside, by curving the interior spacetime and distorting the gravitational field to block it from its surroundings? 172.70.206.45 10:04, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Black hole universe, anyone? https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.11608 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71eUes30gwc 172.71.147.192 18:16, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Universe within a (continuing) universe isn't exactly hard to imagine. 162.158.33.216 13:07, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Could this comic maybe be a reference to a certain popular space video game? Sadly, in what I call a reverse spoiler, I cannot tell you which game I mean without massively spoiling that game. I hope some people know which one I mean and can reply basic on that guess. Fabian42 (talk) 09:30, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

If it's Outer Wilds, there's nothing here that's a gameplay spoiler, is there? Just for a pretty small part of the story, right? 162.158.187.55 10:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

[not OP] It's a pretty big story spoiler and it could be considered a gameplay spoiler indirectly, or it could if there was more specifity. It's fine to discuss it here. Most xkcd fans would love that game even if they can only watch play-throughs, I reckon. So I consider the discussion here a net positive, really, and I suspect most of the authors would too. 162.158.91.36 17:19, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

This is also a bit reminiscent of the classic Perry Bible Fellowship comic "Reset". 172.68.144.140 03:29, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I wonder whether the cyclicity in the comic is an intentional play a cyclic universe theory. 162.158.210.47 11:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly a recurring (NPI!) theme in Randall's works, in various forms (as noted all over this article/Talk-page), so I'd be absolutely amazed if it really isn't anything at all to do with it. 172.70.91.54 12:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I think I've read too much Casey and Andy but I thought that machine should be called a Big-Bang-Nucleosynthesis-O-Mat. WhiteDragon (talk) 14:55, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I have never heard of C&A before. Thank you so much - I should be sleeping now - guess what I'm doing instead? L-Space Traveler (talk)