Astro Katie talks the end of everything

I've been following Astro Katie on twitter for a while, as I enjoy it when she replies to people who seem to display a lack of understanding of astrophysics, which allows me to enjoy how amazing she is at describing astrophysics.

Katie's bio on her website www.astrokatie.com says “Dr Katherine (Katie) Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist who studies a range of questions in cosmology, the study of the universe from beginning to end. She currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Physics at North Carolina State University, where she is also a member of the Leadership in Public Science Cluster.”

Before the event I sent out a call to the Twitterverse to see if anyone had any questions for her.

@Gavin_Simon replied saying: Ask @AstroKatie does she think Pluto is not a planet after seeing those wonderful photos from the flypast of #NewHorizons in 2015?

@NZSkeptics paraphrased Katie's answer as follows: The answer is Pluto is not a planet as the way that is determined has not changed, but the photos are really cool.

The event was held at the Arts Centre in Christchurch in the renovated Great Hall, in all its neo-Gothic, stone/wood splendour, with the added benefit of underground thermal heating meaning we weren't freezing to death despite the cool cloudy weather outside.

Astro Katie speaking at the Great Hall, Arts Centre, Christchurch

There was a bit of anxiety at the start of the event where a dozen or so people who had not booked tickets for the free event were made to wait while the ushers made sure we could all fit in, and those that had booked had already arrived with their allowed extras. Not to worry, all were permitted entry and the talk began.

The talk covered the various theories around how the universe may end. This material will form the basis of her up and coming book (she tweeted out that she worked on the book on a happy but rainy day in a NZ café at an undisclosed location).

So the main theories are:

Heat death re the cosmological constant (death by freezing)

The Big crunch (death by heat/compression)

The Big rip (death by all your atoms being ripped apart)

The theory of quantum tunnelling (where something can pop into existence on the other side of some barrier in some type of infinitesimally small realm of probability (sudden death by a rapidly expanding bubble of alternative reality ‘true vacuum')

I can genuinely say I've done my best to write these down, so if you really want to know what this is all about you'd better buy the book!

She also explained that all of these theories we have are based on an understanding of only 5% of the universe, the rest being made up of dark energy and dark matter, neither of which we have any understanding of at this stage to any degree that can be regarded as satisfactory at all.

Katie gleefully let us know that her favourite means by which the universe could end would be via true vacuum. And via a cute and simple graphic she reiterated that the death bubble would be expanding so fast we wouldn't be able to even see it or sense it coming at all.

I left feeling pretty happy about things considering the topics covered. We might as well keep calm and not worry about the universe's death – it probably won't be happening in our lifetimes after all. Also it made me think about Douglas Adams' infinite improbability drive, which was created out of thin air when some scientists worked out just how unlikely it was to have existed in the first place, plugged that into a computer and gave it a strong Brownian motion device i.e. a cup of tea. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy really is the repository for all known knowledge and wisdom in the universe, and if you don't believe me, go and read it yourself.

At the end of the talk I got the opportunity to ask the question and Katie confirmed (brace yourself):

Pluto is not a planet.

If you cannot let go of the idea that Pluto is a planet you can find your misguided beliefs confirmed in a 1952 edition of The Golden Treasury of Natural History by Bertha Morris Parke.

1952 edition of The Golden Treasury of Natural History by Bertha Morris Parke

For those of you who remember being taught about the planets and were wondering what's new, diving into a lovely old book like this and looking up the latest provides quite a startling contrast in understanding. Those astrophysicists have been quite busy it seems.

I looked at this small section in the aforementioned book and found that as well as Pluto losing planet status (or gaining ‘dwarf planet' status if you want to put a more positive spin on it), the moon count has dramatically increased, and our estimation of Mercury's size compared to Pluto was totally wrong. For up-to-date science on the planets and their moons I'd recommend http://www.go-astronomy.com

That's what's exciting about science and scepticism; the questions lead you to new information which changes your outlook. I'm wondering what other gems I'll find in these old pages.

This is of course exactly the type of thing that ‘sceptics' or believers, (not skeptics) like to point out as a reason why science doesn't work. They have failed to grasp the idea that proof accumulates, science ‘knowledge' is updated and updatable when new evidence is found, and science is about asking questions, not just repeating approved answers.

This is in stark contrast to dogma where ideas cannot be questioned and are set in stone for 100s or 1000s of years, unbelievers are ostracised or worse, or if they are strong enough and of sufficient numbers break away to promote their own brand of dogma.

For example Osteopaths breaking away from Chiropractic, or Anglicans breaking away from the Catholic church.

Katie herself is an active user on Twitter, who not only tweets about astrophysics, her communication work, she also replies to people who have misguided ideas.

I asked her about her work answering people's questions and she confirmed (pretty much verbatim) what is mentioned on her website about science communication.

“People sometimes see me talking about sexism/racism/homophobia/etc in academic science and say I should instead “focus on the science.” As though science is carried out by magical science robots who are immune to human failings and biases.”

She goes on to say:

“I care about all the science we lose when people from underrepresented groups leave or are pushed out by a hostile academic culture.”

As skeptics I think we should accept the evidence that bias exists and work to change our culture if needed to be more inclusive.

At the end then, I left feeling quite positive about life, the universe and everything. I was thinking, keep calm. The universe probably won't end in my lifetime.

Katie Mack and Jess Macfarlane