It’s The End Of The World As We Know It

August 4, 2020

Today we travel to a future where there is no future, because today we’re considering how the universe ends. Plus: how to cope with feeling freaked out by the end of the world, and what the last party ever should be like.

Guests:

Dr. Katie Mack — astrophysicist and author of The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) (also very good on Twitter!)
Dr. Jana Sadler — clinical psychologist based in Southern California
Jessie Char — conference organizer & party planner

Further Reading:

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.

If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.

And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! Head to www.flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help.

That’s all for this future, come back next time and we’ll travel to a new one.

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

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FLASH FORWARD

S6E09- “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It”

[Flash Forward intro music- “Whispering Through” by Asura, an electronic, rhythm-heavy piece]

ROSE EVELETH:
Hello, and welcome to Flash Forward! I’m Rose, and I’m your host, and Flash Forward is a show about the future.

Every episode we go to a specific possible.. or, sometimes, mm, not very possible (laughing slightly) future scenario. Every episode starts with a little field trip into the future to check out what’s going on, and then you and I and all of us together are gonna teleport back to today to talk to real, bona-fide experts about how that world that we just traveled to might actually go down.

[Intro music fades out]

Got it? Great!

Before we go to the future today, I want to tell you about another podcast that you might like. You may have heard me talk about it before, but there is a new season of the podcast Science Diction. And already, you know we have a winner because I do love a pun!

Science Diction is a new podcast from Science Friday and WNYC Studios. Every episode, host Johanna Mayer picks one word and figures out where it came from. Right now, they’re talking about food, one of my favorite subjects. For example, did you know that the word “ketchup,” as in the tomato based product you should never put on a hot dog, actually comes from the word for fish sauce. And in fact, ketchup used to literally be fish sauce. Scientists in the U.S. adapted an East Asian sauce into what Americans know of today as ketchup!

Or, have you ever wondered what the heck “Rocky Road” is, and why we think it’s sounds tasty to eat? You can get the answer to that on a recent episode of Science Diction! Find Science Diction wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, now let’s go to the future. This episode we are starting in the year 2028.

FICTION SKETCH

[Music- light clapping and snapping, with a simple discernible rhythm]

[There’s a light beeping in the background]

BOARD GAME GUY:

Okay, so- it says… “Pounce: Place this figure (moving the figure) in an empty space within six spaces and adjacent to two or more rebels. (thinking) Within six spaces.. two or more rebels. But it can’t because-

GIRL:
Oh!

[Some shuffling/dragging of the game board

BOARD GAME GUY:
So it skips over that, and it goes to pounce!

[A machine starts up, almost entirely drowning out his words]

BOARD GAME GUY (cont’d):

“Place this figure in an empty space within six spaces and adjacent to a healthy rebel that…

[Another two voices come in on top of him in an excited, but hard to make out conversation, making it much harder to hear Board Game Guy. The machine starts up again.]

BOARD GAME GUY (cont’d) (moving pieces):

…That’s- basically it. So, it’s going to appear here, and then.. attack the healthy rebel-

[Clink of a spoon against a mug]

BOARD GAME GUY (cont’d):
-okay, so, he’s gonna attack him, um, and that’s where we-

[An inaudible announcement comes on on some sort of muffled loudspeaker, adding to the auditory chaos]

EXCITED CONVERSATIONALIST 1 (in sudden clarity):
-oh, that does sound like Mr Bean; that movie gave me anxiety.

[Dice are shaken. A phone rings. The coffee mug clinks again]

[More and more voices and conversations are added in, layering on top of each other, building. Their specific words don’t matter; instead, it’s the overwhelming noise that comes from all of them speaking at once]

[A baby cries. The mug clinks. The machine goes.]

[And then, suddenly- all of it cuts off]

[A pause. And then:]

FICTION SKETCH END

ROSE:
Ooooh. Mysterious. What just happened? Today’s episode is all about the end of the universe. Literally, like how does this universe of ours go out? With a bang? With a whimper? With.. something else?

KATIE MACK (on recording):
What’s even the point of thinking about how the universe is going to end? How do we approach that as, as research, as a research question?

ROSE:
This is Dr. Katie Mack, a theoretical astrophysicist and the author of a new book called The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). And the book is about, yes, the end of the universe.

KATIE:
I gave a couple of public talks where I talked about a few of the more exciting possibilities, and I just had so much fun thinking about these kind of big destructive processes. And I knew- I could, I could tell that the audiences got really excited about it, about thinking about, you know, ultimate destruction and what it all means.

[Rose laughs]

KATIE (cont’d):
And, yeah! I thought it would be fun to, to go through the possibilities.

ROSE:
Fun! And that’s what we’re going to do today! Katie is going to walk us through the main theories for how, exactly, our universe might end. Shall we begin? Okay, great.

Theory number one! The Big Crunch.

Right now the universe is expanding. Since the start of the Big Bang, everything is moving out and out and out, and the universe is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You can’t feel it, but it is happening. And the question of The Big Crunch is this:

KATIE:
Okay, is that going to keep going forever, or is the expansion going to turn around? Is it all going to come back and collapse again?

ROSE:
If it does come back the other way, that’s “the Big Crunch.”

KATIE:
An analogy I use a lot is, you know, throwing a ball up into the air. You know, you could think of the big bang as that sort of initial push when you push the ball out of your hand, and if you- you know, if you throw it really fast, then it might escape into space and keep going forever. But most of the time, it’ll sort of stop and, and fall down again.

ROSE:
In this version of the end, we would actually see it coming. If we were still here on Earth being humans.

KATIE:
The distant galaxies would stop appearing to move away from us and they would start to appear to move toward us. And all the stuff nearby would start coming toward us.

ROSE:
First, Andromeda, the galaxy closest to us, would crash into ours.

KATIE:
And that’s not going to destroy our galaxy; it’s not going to destroy our solar system, but it’ll kind of move all the stars around.

ROSE:
This is going to happen no matter what, by the way- Big Crunch or no Big Crunch. But then after our galaxy is destroyed, as the crunch continues, things start to get kind of weird.

KATIE:
When you compress the space that we live in in the universe, you also compress all of the radiation in the space.

ROSE:
All the stars that have been shining for billions of years have emitted a ton of starlight and radiation into space.

KATIE:
But if the universe is compressing again, that starlight kind of doesn’t have anywhere to go. And so you’ll start to.. you’ll start to crank up the temperature of just empty space, because there’ll be all this radiation from all these nearby stars that are crashing into us. And all the stars that have ever shone in the universe will have all of their light kind of being compressed into the space that we’re in.

So the way that the big crunch kills you, really, is not the collision of galaxies or stars or anything like that; it’s the cooking of the, of the ambient radiation in space suddenly being compressed too much. And, like, what actually happens (slight laugh) is that you get so much radiation and it gets so hot that you ignite the surfaces of stars. (slight laugh) So you get, like, thermonuclear explosions on the surface of stars from all of this radiation from the compression of space.

ROSE:
The Big Crunch is probably one of the most dramatic of all the options. But it’s also not super likely. This theory has fallen out of favor among physicists, just because there’s no real evidence that the expansion of space is going to turn around and reverse on us. But don’t forget about this one just yet, because we’re going to come back to it in a little bit.

The fact that the universe is expanding, and doesn’t seem to show any sign of reversing that expansion, leads us to theory number two! HEAT DEATH.

This theory is misleadingly named, in my opinion, because it sounds like we are going to be cooked alive, but in fact, it’s really the opposite.

KATIE:
If it keeps going like this over time, then all of the stuff in the universe gets more and more diluted away. Galaxies get farther and farther apart from each other. The radiation background in the universe gets more and more diluted and, you know, dimmer.

And so eventually you have galaxies so far apart that they can’t see each other anymore. So we’ll get to a point where we can’t see other galaxies because they’re so far away from us and traveling away from us so quickly that, you know, they’re just- they’re invisible at that point.

ROSE:
As things get further and further away, the collisions that are required to form new stars can’t happen.

KATIE:
And then, sort of- planets are kind of spiraling into their stars, and the stars are burning out, and then black holes or are sort of the things that are left over. But then the black holes themselves can decay away in a process called evaporation, Hawking Evaporation, and then just matter itself decays. And you end up in a universe that’s just, like, empty and cold and dark. (slight laugh)

And the reason it’s called the heat death-

ROSE (on call):
This is the goth one.

KATIE:
Yeah, yeah. It’s a really depressing concept.

[They both laugh]

KATIE (cont’d):
But the reason it’s called a heat death is that in physics, when we, we use the term heat, we usually just mean, like, disordered energy. And so it’s the heat death, because at the end, all that’s left is, like, waste heat.

ROSE (Mono):
This is the sad womp womp version of the end, the slow expansion into cold, lonely nothingness. And this is, at least for now, what seems to be happening in our universe. And in fact, the rate of expansion is increasing. Our universe is expanding faster and faster and faster. And to understand why, we have to talk about Einstein. You probably knew he’d show up at some point right?

So up until about five billion years ago, the expansion of the universe was slowing down. You can think kind of like, a firework, right: At the beginning of the explosion it super fast! And then all the little glittery bits slow down as they get further from the initial ignition. That was our universe.

KATIE:
And then around five billion years ago, it started speeding up. And, uh, that’s extremely weird? It’s, uh-

ROSE (on call):
Yeah, why!?

KATIE:
Yeah, uh, I mean- It’s the same kind of physics as if you’re you know, you’re throwing that ball up into the air. And you throw it up into the air and it’s sort of slowing down for a little while, looks like it’s going to fall back again, and instead it just shoots off into space. Right. That’s, that’s- it’s a very similar kind of physics. Like we did not expect that to happen. And we still don’t know precisely why it’s happening.

ROSE (Mono):
The leading contender to explain this is dark energy. What is dark energy? Great question! Nobody really knows!

KATIE:
The sort of leading idea behind it is that it’s actually a- an idea that Einstein came up with called the cosmological constant, where either it’s just this property of space where space just likes to expand. There’s, there’s something about space where, you know, if you take a little bit of space and you leave it alone, it’ll, it’ll expand on its own accord because it has something called the cosmological constant in it.

ROSE:
So if space has this tendency to want to expand, naturally, why wasn’t it expanding this fast before? Here is the theory:

Dark matter [sic] wants to expand space. But it’s not the only thing trying to get space to do its bidding out there. Matter, stuff like you and me and stars and planets, does the opposite. Matter tries to contract space. So there is this endless war between matter and dark energy, working against one another. As the universe expanded, the matter, the stuff that wants to contract, got more and more spread out, more diluted. But the dark energy wasn’t getting diluted. And as a result, about five billion years ago, the balance between those two forces tipped in dark energy’s favor.

KATIE:
And so after a while, this- stretchiness of space is starting to win. (slight laugh) And so- then, that just takes over. Then you have a universe that’s dominated by this, this, like, cosmological constant, this inherent stretchiness. And so it’s, it’s accelerating in its expansion.

ROSE:
Now that all the brakes are off, the universe is like a runaway train: Never coming back, tearing up the track, burning in my veins, you know the deal.

And so off we are, racing fast and faster to our heat death of sadness.

Unless! Theory three is the one that happens.

Enter: the Big Rip.

So- remember the dark energy; we just talked about it, that thing that makes space expand? Turns out, there are actually different possible types of dark energy out there.

KATIE:
So what dark energy does is it stretches space out, right, so whatever, whatever version of dark energy you have, it stretches out empty space. But there are different versions of dark energy that, that sort of take that job more or less seriously.

ROSE:
In the Heat Death version of the world, dark energy only takes that job moderately seriously. Like, say, Pam from The Office. But in the Big Rip version of this world, dark energy takes that job very seriously. The Big Rip dark energy is the Dwight Shrute of the cosmos.

In fact, this version of dark energy takes its job so seriously that it gets a special name.

KATIE:
Something called phantom dark energy.

ROSE (slightly spooky):
Phantom dark energy (slight laugh, normal) is extra energetic and stretchy, and can pull at the edges of galaxies. And if the conditions are just right, it can pull so hard that it literally rips our entire universe apart.

KATIE:
Each galaxy, the stars toward the edges will start to drift off and then the other stars will be kind of pulled away from each other. And that galaxy will kind of dissipate. And then it gets, it gets more (slight laugh) you know, local. So then the, the planets will start to be pulled away from their stars.

And then it just keeps going, because you just have more and more of this dark energy popping up in all of the space that, that all of this matter is in. And so it starts to actually rip apart planets. And.. then it rips apart atoms. (laugh) And, and eventually, in this scenario, it rips apart space itself. Like the expansion gets so extreme that it just rips space open.

ROSE (on call):
That’s pretty sweet. I mean, like, that’s cool.

KATIE:
Yeah.

[They both laugh]

KATIE (con’td):
Yeah, it’s a very dramatic scenario.

ROSE (Mono):
Very dramatic, very intense, very metal. And also, pretty unlikely according to some physicists.

KATIE:
Most physicists will say, oh, you know, it, it sort of violates certain energy conditions. And we don’t, we don’t like it as a theory.

ROSE:
Well, fine then, physicists. In that case, let’s move on to theory number four: Vacuum Decay.

ROSE (on call):
If you had to pick one to experience- not the one that you think is the most likely, but the one you would choose to experience- which one would it be?

KATIE:
Okay, um- I would choose vacuum decay as my favorite one- for a number of reasons. One being that it’s kind of- as a physicist, it’s kind of one of the most interesting to talk about, but just sort of based on the, the complicated physics that happens in it. But also because it’s the only one that’s, like, definitely painless and not scary. (laughing) And, and the reason it’s not scary is because you don’t see it coming- and I realize some people might have different ideas about whether or not that’s scary. But you don’t see it coming. You don’t feel it. It’s, it’s- it’s very fast. You know, there is no tragic aftermath. It’s just, it’s just over and done with. So that’s why that one’s my favorite.

ROSE:
This one is probably most like the intro scene that you heard. One day you’re eating dinner or watching TV and then- boom! The universe ends. But how?

Okay, so you have heard of the Higgs boson right? Well, there’s also something called the Higgs field.

KATIE:
And what we know about the Higgs field is it has something to do with how particles got mass in the very early universe. So it’s this energy field that pervades all space, and in the very early universe the Higgs field was changing in energy levels.

ROSE:
In the early universe, the Higgs field was different than it is today. And when the Higgs field changed values from what it was to what it is now, it broke a bunch of stuff.

KATIE:
So, the laws of physics have changed since the beginning of the universe to, to now. And that all happened in the very, very early, you know, less-than-a-millisecond kind of phase, like, very, very early beginning of the universe.

ROSE:
And if the Higgs field were to change value today, it would break physics again.

KATIE:
If it- If that value changed, then that would be bad (laughing) because it would mean that suddenly, you know, electrons can’t orbit around the centers of atoms anymore, and molecules can’t fit together anymore, and, you know, matter might not be stable. And, like, all sorts of things, bad things can happen if you change the value of the Higgs field. We want it to be what it is, because that’s how particle physics works. And that’s how, like, all of our atoms hold together, right; we want it to stay the same.

ROSE:
And one of the things that the LHC found was that the current state of the Higgs field is not a given.

KATIE:
It’s sort of like if you have a glass at the edge of a table. Right? Like the glass is sitting there at the table; it’s perfectly fine, but it would really rather be on the floor. The, the glass-

ROSE (on call):
Especially if you have a cat. (laughing slightly)

KATIE:
Exactly. Exactly. The, the glass being on the floor is the lower energy state. It’s the preferred state. And if you’re not careful, you could knock the glass onto the floor. Of course, if you do that, then that’s very bad for the glass and everything’s a disaster. But, you know, it would kind of rather be there.

ROSE (Mono):
And based on their experiments, physicists think that the Higgs field might actually kind of prefer to be on the floor, and not on the table where it is today.

KATIE:
(slight laugh) And if that’s true, then that means that our universe is in what’s called a false vacuum state.

ROSE:
So if something were to knock that glass off the table- some cosmic cat, say- the Higgs field would revert to its preferred state, and our universe would revert from this false vacuum to a true vacuum. Which would be… bad for us.

KATIE:
You disturb the Higgs field somewhere and it would create this bubble of, of true vacuum space, of the space that has this other value of the Higgs field where physics works totally differently.

And that bubble would expand out at about the speed of light and take over the whole universe. Kind of like if you- if instead of just a glass at the table, you had, like, a string of pearls and one of the pearls fell off the edge- it would pull the others with it. It could just happen, like, right next to you right now, a little bit of the Higgs field, you know, right next to your head could create this bubble. And that bubble would spontaneously expand out at about the speed of light.

Because it’s expanding at the speed of light, you can’t see it coming (slight laugh) because by the time the light from it gets to your eye, the bubble is there already, because it’s moving at the same speed. So there’s no warning. And because it’s traveling so fast, you know, your nerve impulses don’t travel that fast. So you don’t feel it. (laughing)

But what it does is the- the bubble, you know, kind of just destroys everything in its path. And then that stuff is now inside the bubble where you have a different kind of space with different laws of physics, and so the atoms can’t hold together anymore. And then it turns out that also what happens after that is that probably the space is sort of gravitationally unstable, and so everything inside it collapses into a black hole.

So it’s a very- it’s a very, very complete ending. (laughing) So once this bubble starts going, it really destroys everything.

ROSE:
Before you freak out: It is not easy to disturb the Higgs Field. And, there’s no way to predict when this might happen, because it’s one of those quantum things that’s inherently unpredictable, so if it does happen, it will be instant and unforeseeable! And if that doesn’t make you feel any better which, you know, fair enough, (slight laugh) maybe this will:

KATIE:
The whole idea that vacuum decay is possible is predicated on the idea that we understand everything about how physics works, because the way we get to this conclusion that we’re in a false vacuum is by saying, ‘Okay, the- our understanding of our particle physics is complete even to very, very extreme energies that we can’t test with particle colliders.’ And that’s, that’s not really a reasonable statement.

ROSE:
Maybe the physicists are just wrong! This happens- quite a lot, actually. That seems to me to be sort of the fun part of theoretical physics.

KATIE:
So maybe vacuum decay isn’t possible, but we don’t know. We don’t know at the moment. And so we get to do things like write fun papers about (laughing) vacuum decay destroying us all.

ROSE:
Okay, now we have reached the final stop on our tour of the end of the world.

Remember the Big Crunch we talked about earlier? This idea that maybe the universe will stop expanding and crunch back down on itself? Well there’s sort of a last bonus theory here called Bounce. Which is this idea that we’ll get a Crunch that then leads to an expansion, and then back down, in a cycle. Like bouncing on a trampoline. But with extra dimensions, and universes that we haven’t even detected yet!

KATIE:
They’re called brane worlds. So the word brane- B R A N E-

ROSE (on call):
Which I love.

KATIE:
Yeah. It’s the word BRANE, B-R-A-N-E. It’s kind of like short for membrane. It’s a, you know, it’s a, it’s a kind of space that has a smaller number of dimensions than the larger space it’s in, right. So, so, you’d have a three dimensional brane in a four dimensional space, or, in this case, it’s a four dimensional brane, if you include time, in the five dimensional space in between. But anyway.

ROSE (Mono): If you are currently feeling a little bit like that GIF of the lady with the numbers in front of her face right now: Don’t worry, you’re not alone. You don’t actually need to understand the details of branes for this; the point is that we could exist in one brane, and there could be other brane worlds out there.

So, to help us all understand this, I’m going to borrow a little exercise that Katie has in her book.

So, I want you to take your hands out in front of you. Your left hand is us, our “brane,” the 3-dimensional universe in which we live. Your right hand is some other brane that has some other number of dimensions. Now put your hands together in prayer position in front of you.

This is the beginning of both universes; each of your hands is an impossibly dense ball of hot plasma. Now, move your hands apart, spreading your fingers. On the left, you have our universe, spreading out, cooling, developing planets and ultimately developing us… humans and podcasts and paper clips, and all the things that come with- us. On the right you have this other mystery brane, which is doing stuff that we on the left cannot see at all. Who knows what’s happening out there… could be anything! Could also be… nothing.

Okay, now move your hands back towards one another, and then slam them together like a big thunderclap. That force, that is the Bounce. That clap has destroyed everything on each hand, all of our lives, all of whatever’s life may have developed on your right hand, and then as you float them back out again, it all starts all over again.

This can happen any number of times, this “brane clapping.” And each time, a new set of universes emerges.

KATIE:
So you can have these two branes that, that sort of smack against each other. And every time they hit each other, they create a new Big Bang, and then they kind of come apart again, and then they have their own evolution where you have, you know, the expansion space and all that. The usual thing. And then they smack against each other again and you create a new Big Bang. And so this, this cycle of, of collisions of brains was one idea that was put forward for explaining the big bang, and also, you know, creating a new way of ending the universe in this very violent (laughing) fashion.

ROSE:
This is called the Ekpyrotic Cosmos, which I am adding to the list of great band names that have appeared on Flash Forward. (slight laugh) This idea is appealing to science fiction writers because it’s cool and offers potential other universes to travel to and communicate with. But it’s also appealing more generally because it means that the end of the universe isn’t really the end.

KATIE:
It’s fun because it’s an alternative to the kind of standard picture. And it gives you this, this really cool sort of violent end of the cosmos coming into a new beginning.

ROSE:
And even beyond that, when those brane worlds touch each other, they could theoretically pass information between them. Not like books or words or even sound waves. More fundamental stuff, like gravitational waves. But at least it would be.. something.

KATIE:
It sort of, sort of gives you the possibility that something lives on, (slight laugh) you know, and carries on into a new- into a new cycle.

ROSE:
This theory isn’t super likely, but it kind of sticks around, in part, I think, because it’s nice. Thinking about the end of the universe can be fun, but it can also be sort of stressful, philosophically.

KATIE:
I don’t know; I find it so challenging to.. to really grapple with this stuff. I do find that although I spend a lot of time thinking about the end of the universe and about these big destruction possibilities, I also kind of try to- try not to think about them in some ways, (slight laugh) like, I find the idea of my own death quite disturbing. And.. the idea of it-

ROSE (on call) (overlapping):
I think that’s normal.

KATIE:
Yeah. And then- I mean, some people come to terms with it. Some people find peace. But the end of the cosmos is like- like how do you find meaning if everything’s going to end and it’s going to erase everything that ever happened, right? How is it ever gonna matter that you were nice to somebody if the memory of you and that other person are completely erased from the record? That’s, that’s a hard thing to.. come to terms with.

ROSE (Mono):
And when we come back, we are going to grapple with these questions. How do you cope with feeling freaked out by the end? How should we live our lives? And what does the end really mean?

All that and more after this quick break.

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ROSE:
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ROSE:
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ROSE:
Okay, I have a confession to make to you, listeners. Talking about the end of the universe does not freak me out. I don’t really know why; I get that it’s this big and potentially scary topic.

KATIE:
I often get messages from people saying that they’re, they’re really scared, you know, because they heard about vacuum decay and they’re really scared that the universe is going to, you know, decay, that there’s gonna be this bubble of death that shows up right next to them, and then it’s going to destroy the whole universe.

ROSE:
When Katie gives talks about this, she scans the audience for people who might have brought their kids.

KATIE:
You know, I often start these talks by talking about the earth being destroyed by the sun. And I always kind of look, you know, out the corner of my eye to see if the child is crying, because sometimes, um, sometimes kids get real, real, real, caught up in that. And, and if you tell a kid that the sun is going to die, sometimes they get very upset. And if you tell them, ‘Oh, don’t worry, you and everyone you love will be dead by then,’ that does not help.

[They both laugh]

ROSE (on call)(laughing):
That’s not that encouraging.

KATIE (laughing):
Yeah.

ROSE:
Right.

ROSE (Mono):
And it’s not just kids. Even some of the physicists who study this stuff can feel- freaked out by it. So what about you, dear listener? Have you ever been freaked out that the universe is going to end? Are you now freaked out that the universe is going to end?

If so, I’m sorry. If not, you probably do relate to feeling like it’s the end of the universe, when there’s some big, hard thing that has happened or is about to happen and it just feels like, this is it; this is the end of me.

JANA SADLER:
I have not had any clients that have come in and said, “I’m afraid the world’s going to end, I don’t know what to do.” But, I mean, I have clients that do come in and feel like it is the end of the world due to other situations that they can’t see a solution for. So, yeah, a lot of times it is more so feeling like it’s the end of their world, but not the actual physical world.

ROSE:
This is Dr. Jana Sadler, a clinical psychologist based in Long Beach. And I called her to get some advice for those who might feel a little bit freaked out by this stuff. By the way, if you are feeling really seriously freaked out, or you really need to talk to someone, please reach out. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 1-800-273-TALK.

ROSE (on call):
So if I were.. a client of yours, and I came in and I was like “Jana I just read this book about the end of the universe and now I’m just really, really freaked out about the fact that the universe is going to end,” how would you, like, kinda try to talk me through this?

JANA:
Right, well, I would, I first would ask, well, what is freaking you out so much about the world ending? And, and I would, you know, cause a lot of times with, with some clients, it may be that it’s not that the actual world’s going to end, it’s that maybe they haven’t said goodbye to one of their loved ones, maybe that they’re living across the country from their mother or father. And if the world were to end, they w- right, you know; when they won’t expect it, they might not be around people who they love and care about. So I would really try to explore, go deeper into the fear of the world ending.

ROSE (Mono):
Are you scared by this because you feel you have some unfinished business? Something you really want to do? Maybe now is a good time to do it. The bubble could appear and swallow us at any time!

But instead of worrying about that, Jana advises focusing on what you can do right now to feel happier.

JANA:
It’s a valid thought, you know; it’s a valid, um, feeling to have, the fear. But at the same time, when we think about the end of the universe, we’re more so focused on Oh, it- What’s going to happen in the future? But if we focus more on what’s going on now, and how to basically feel calm and peacefulness and happiness in our present moment, then a lot of times, that really does help to kind of reduce that anxiety of thinking about when or if the world should or would end.

ROSE:
So instead of focusing on the end of the world, think about right now, and what you can do right now, in this moment, to feel a little bit better. Text a friend, go for a walk, look at cute pictures of animals on the internet!

One of the things I think probably contributes to the conversation about the end of the world feeling scary, is that it’s totally out of our control. This will, I’m sure, completely shock you, but I am a tiny bit of a control freak. And sometimes, for me, it’s hard to recognize and accept when something is not my job, or is not something I can do anything about.

JANA:
So when somebody is, is really having a difficult time letting go of that control, knowing that they can’t control when the world is going to end, a lot of times I would redirect them and say, okay, what, let’s- what can you focus on that you can control? And a lot of times the only things that we can’t control is how to- how we react to certain situations.

ROSE:
And if you do find yourself stuck on a negative reaction or a negative thought, Jana suggests practicing what she calls “thought stopping.”

JANA:
It’s kind of where you have the client imagine, like, a stop sign to say ‘Hey. You’re, you’re, you’re thinking about this, and it’s not helping you right now because it’s making you anxious.’ You’re not able to say, for example, go buy groceries when you really need to go buy groceries or you’re not able to do your job from home because you’re constantly ruminating on this thought. So we tell them to imagine a stop sign, to engage in those relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, or mind- some mindfulness exercises, and then try to redirect their attention to a more positive and adaptive sort of, uh, thought.

ROSE:
I definitely do this, where I will revisit some memory or some anxiety and it will play on loop in my head. And even though I know that I should (slight laugh) stop thinking about it, it’s really hard to do.

After talking to Jana, I tried practicing this stop sign technique and because (slight laugh) I am me, I made up a little character to hold the stop sign, with a backstory.

So now, when I start to have one of these intrusive thoughts, I imagine a hedgehog named Barbara, holding up a stop sign. Barbara, of course, is no regular hedgehog. She was created in the lab of an evil sign company hell bent on putting confusing signage all over the world so people will get lost constantly! They are also investors in oil and gas companies, and the more lost people are, the more money they make on the gas that they burn. Dastardly!

Barbara the hedgehog was one of their experiments, a hedgehog with a specially adapting arm that can turn into a street sign when someone is actually managing to go the right way. Covert signage via cute animal! But! Barbara escaped, and now lives to help people escape their own negative thoughts. And when I start to get stuck on one, she appears, and she holds up her little stop sign.

You do not have to go this far, obviously. You are also free to borrow Barbara the mechanically enhanced hedgehog if that’s helpful to you, or you can make up your own version! The point is to practice the stopping.

None of this is easy, obviously, but it can become more natural with practice and with the help of a professional. And I do want to take this moment to say that getting help is awesome. You don’t have to be down in the deepest depths of depression, whatever you might think that that looks like, to see someone to help talk through anxieties or struggles. If you’re finding yourself stuck on anything, consider finding a professional to talk to.

JANA:
It doesn’t have to be where you really dive deep into childhood or anything like that. I mean, there are therapies that do that. But if you want to go to therapy because there’s a specific issue that’s really weighing on your mind or on your heart, you can go in there and say, ‘Hey, I just- I want to work on this particular issue,’ and, you know, and get it done and you can work. And it could be like a short term treatment and you’ll be good to go.

ROSE:
If you want help finding someone to talk to, I will post a few resources in the show notes and on the Flash Forward website. Therapy is good and should be more accessible and affordable for everybody. No shame!

Okay, so we’ve covered how the world might end and how to cope with that fact, but I wanted to end this episode on something a little more fun!

JESSIE CHAR:
Really at the, at the end of the universe, like, is- what is more important? Is it a- what, five thousand year old marble sculpture or is it a fresh grilled cheese sandwich? I don’t know.

ROSE:
When we come back we’re going to talk about how to plan the last party ever. But first a quick break.

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ROSE:
Okay, so, when I was planning this episode, I was trying to figure out what to put in this last section. How do you end an episode about the end? And I started thinking about how I might want to spend the end of the world. Which then got me thinking about parties.

Let’s say we know the end of the universe is coming. We have some warning. And let’s say that humans are still on the planet Earth. This combination of conditions is- mm, impossible, probably not going to happen, given what we know about the physics of all of this, but- it’s fine. We’re just going to go with it. And let’s say we want to go out with a human sized bang.

What should the last party ever be like?

JESSIE:
Oh my god, it’s so- okay. I mean, if you want the, like, (laughing) realistic answer- we’ll get to, like, this fantasy answer next-

[She and Rose both laugh]

JESSIE:
It’s the end of the world. Like, h- like, that would kind of maybe mean that money doesn’t matter anymore. (slight laugh) And so, like, being able to barter for labor and goods when maybe nobody cares about making a last paycheck anymore. It’s just like, how are you gonna staff that party? (laughing) That’s my realistic answer for it.

ROSE:
This is Jessie Char, a conference organizer and a party planner.

ROSE (on call):
There’s no incentive for you to show up to, like, work at the party. (slight laugh)

JESSIE:
Exactly, exactly, or it’s just like, oh, how am I going to get seventy-two champagne flutes? Obviously there’s more than seventy-two people. But like, you know, just ordering things and fulfillment, like, who cares anymore?

ROSE:
So just for the sake of having a bit of fun, we are going to set aside the question of plausibility of the physics. And we are also going to set aside questions of supply chains and finances. Let’s say that there is a party wizard who can make all of the actual logistics happen. What would a professional party planner do for the last party ever?

JESSIE:
When you’re thinking about a party, you know, one of the first things you think about is venue: where is it going to be? One of the interesting types of places to hold this kind of end of the year or- “end of the year,” (laugh) end of the world party- or end of the universe? Which one is it? World or universe?

ROSE (overlapping):
End of the universe, yeah.

JESSIE:
End of the universe, that’s big.

ROSE:
It’s everything!

JESSIE:
Yeah. So it’s just like maybe… maybe a museum. Maybe the Louvre, maybe the Met, um. Something like that, that kind of has an aspect of celebrating everything that came before.

I think that maybe the challenge with that is, like, it introduces an element of nostalgia that, like- would that make people sad? Like, how would you feel? I guess when faced with thousands of years of, like, beautiful art, like- Would it feel celebratory or would it feel somber? I’m not sure.

ROSE:
Right, because then you’re looking around, and you’re like, “Wow, look at everything we’ve done that will now be over, and it’s all-

JESSIE (overlapping):
Yeah!

ROSE:
–coming to an end.” So in some ways, I was sort of imagining a big outdoor situation, but.. you know, then there is that question of how do you bring in the fun things, or what are sort of the infrastructure for having a party in a big outdoor space; how do you prevent it from being sort of, just, like, a bunch of people standing in a field, which maybe is the way to celebrate? I don’t know.

But also, now that you raise that question, I do feel like at some point depending on.. how people are feeling at the end of the universe if someone were in the Louvre or the Met or something there might also be (a cat meows!) sort of, like, a weird destructive impulse to set everything on fire or something, I don’t know? (laughing)

JESSIE:
Exactly, and I was going to get to that too. It’s just, like- How do you keep the party from turning, like, bad weird.

[She and Rose both laugh]

JESSIE (cont’d):
Yeah, like, destruction, because if nothing matters anymore, or rather if the universe is ending, yeah, I think there would be a strong impulse for destruction from people who have no history of behavior like that. I mean I would probably want to smash one thing before I go. It’s- I, I-

But I do like the idea of outside, I do like the idea of.. kind of experiencing the natural world and appreciating it for the last time. Another interesting thing I thought of could be similar to like what you were saying about looking up at the sky, like maybe a planetarium or like somewhere where you can just kind of lie down and maybe watch a projection of something on the ceiling that could be stars or could be anything, could be movies, could be historical clips or a combination of all of them or like the Eames’ Powers Ten or something like that. That’s like a little bit- I don’t know. A little introverted. A little introspective. Could be really interesting.

ROSE (Mono):
You also have to figure out when to have this party.

JESSIE:
Yeah, so I was thinking, like, three to four weeks in advance of the end of the world, so that- part of that is that so nobody finds out that they’re pregnant after the party. That would be a weird bummer.

You know, they might be hung over for a couple of days or like coming down from whatever it is that they took at the party. And they still need to get affairs in order and they still need to spend time with, you know, maybe different groups of family, different groups of friends before they kind of settle into like maybe the final week with, like, their closest family and loved ones.

So, yeah, I’m thinking like three to four weeks.

ROSE:
Then there’s a question of what to actually have at the party. So let’s start with music.

JESSIE:
I feel like, you know, a lot of people would probably have a strong inclination for this party to be like all acid and cocaine and acid and REM’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it-”

[Both of them are laughing as she says this]

JESSIE (cont’d):
-which is like, it’s just too on the nose.

ROSE (on call, simultaenous):
On loop. Just on loop. (laughing)

JESSIE:
Too on- heh. Yeah. Too on the nose. We can’t do that.

ROSE (Mono):
Instead, Jessie shared her foolproof party playlist trick, which goes like this: Look up the top ten chart from the following time periods: The year your parents met, the year you were born, the year you graduated highschool, the year you graduated college, and then the current top 10.

JESSIE:
I like that because it’s not all good songs. You get some bad songs mixed in there. But I kind of, I kind of like the beauty of, like, having things in that we’re head scratchers because, you know, like you look at the top 10 chart for, like, whatever the end of the year 2002 or wh- it’s not, it’s not going to be good. They’re not all gonna be gold.

[Rose laughs]

JESSIE (cont’d):
But that’s kind of what the world is, you know. It’s, (laugh) is that mix of like things that are super wonderful and memorable and things that happen and were popular, but then like everybody forgot about because it was never actually good. And, and so I think that I would want the playlist to reflect that, the good and the bad of different eras.

ROSE:
Jessie actually shared a bunch of really great party tips that we don’t have time to get into, but if you are a Patron you will hear all about these pro party tips on the bonus podcast this week! I am definitely going to use some of these tips, uh, as soon as we can safely have parties again.

Anyway, the real key to this particular party is how to keep it on the rails. How to keep it fun and not depressing, high energy but not totally chaotic, burn everything to the ground destruction. How do you thread the needle and make it celebratory and light while also not feeling flippant or getting too nostalgic? Jessie says that she thinks the key to all of this is offering juxtapositions.

JESSIE:
I’m- I know that you said, like, no Gregorian chant, I feel- but now that you mention it, it’s just like, now I want to find a place for it. (laughing) I don’t know where that is. Maybe the Gregorian chant can be next to the absurdist ice cream sundae bar, like, I don’t know. Stuff like that, I, I love playing with, and you know, if this were to be maybe-

Like, let’s say there’s a museum that’s next to a field or something like that. I.. I would love to be able to have, like, you know, a grilled cheese station in, like, the Greek art exhibit or something stupid like that, you know,’cause, ‘cause really, at the, at the end of the universe, like, is- what is more important? Is it a five thousand year old marble sculpture or is it a fresh grilled cheese sandwich? I don’t know.

ROSE:
Or, maybe, you just get this weirdness about death out of the way at the very beginning.

JESSIE:
I was rolling around this idea (slight laugh) of, like, maybe to get that out of people’s systems, like- and this is dark and weird-

ROSE (on call):
That’s what we’re here for.

JESSIE:
–but maybe the party. (off Rose) Yeah. (continuing) Maybe the party does start with, like, some sort of a faux… ritual.

I produced this party where- when upon arrival, I poured a very, very small, vial of liquid for people and was just like, please enjoy this tiny vial of liquid. And they would be like, what’s in it? And I was just like, you don’t need to know that right now. But like, don’t worry. It’s a safe space. Like, everything’s going to be fine. And so they would take the little vial of liquid and they would go through this tunnel and it was this whole thing.

And then like, when I had kind of received every guest I like, went into the back room where the party was, and maybe even a third of the people were like, whoa, like, what was in that? Like, I feel so weird. And all it was (slight laugh) was like half an ounce of Chambord, which is just like a liqueur. It was nothing. (laughing) It is basically nothing. It’s like giving people a thimble of water. But it affected them nonetheless. It was like very much a placebo thing. And so I’m wondering if like let’s let’s just get this weird ritual thing out of your system; I don’t know, I think that could be interesting?

Maybe not for everybody in the world, but maybe if this is just, like, Rose and Jessie’s close friends party, you know?

[She laughs]

ROSE (Mono):
Once we get all the complicated death feelings out of the way, the party could offer up some guided opportunities to try things that you never got to do before the end of the universe.

JESSIE:
I was almost thinking that, like, costumes would be kind of fun, or, like, just different- maybe not costumes per se, like in a Halloween or opera sense, but like- just different clothes around where it’s just like you can kind of go in and change and be whoever you want to be. Maybe that’s just like a super, like, modern fashionista or, like, maybe you do want to be like a burning man steampunk person for a little while or like wear a rave outfit.

I do think that, like, wearing clothes and expressing yourself through fashion can be a really transformative experience. And I think that that could be something fun for people to do. People who maybe didn’t have the opportunity or the money to be able to.. afford that kind of experimentation with the way that they present themselves. But I do think that that would be fun, um, is like [sic] letting people alter their appearance in safe ways.

ROSE:
Not everybody is going to want to party at the end of the world, and that’s fine. Not everybody wants to party at any point in time. But for those who do want a celebratory outlet, this end of the world event seems pretty fun to me.

ROSE (on call):
The last question I wanted to ask you was, if Party Wizard came to you and was like “all right Jessie, we know the world is ending, it’s very sad, but we want to have a party, will you plan it?” Would you, like, take on this responsibility, would you even be interested in planning this party?

JESSIE:
Yeah, I- yeah, yeah. I mean, so part of the reason that I plan parties and kind of became an event organizer in the first place was- I’m really bad at attending parties-

[Rose laughs]

JESSIE (cont’d):
–but I like attending parties, like I like going to conferences. I like going to events. But I am such an introvert that I feel so awkward that I never know what to do. And I end up just being like a wallflower. And like, I, I like being social, but I’m not good at it. And so I started planning parties because then I could be at the party around everybody, but then, like, I was in charge and I had a job. And so, you know, I, I would definitely- because I would really want to be at the end of the world- or at the end of the universe party, but I just wouldn’t even know what to do, aside from, I guess, eat lots of hot dogs in a ball gown, which I’m still going to do at my own party.

[Rose laughs]

JESSIE (cont’d):
But yeah, I- you know, it’s a crazy undertaking and I’m sure that people would go into it having a lot of expectations. But at least for me, with my experience, like I feel like I could, I feel like I could deliver a great event for people, you know, based on the things that we’ve talked about. And then I would, of course, add a bajillion last minute things, because, like, the best ideas for parties and events always come like the week before it happens when all of your budget is gone. But we have a party wizard. So like, oh, my god, this would be a dream! Yeah. (slight laugh)

ROSE:
Party Wizard forever!

[A snapping, synthy music comes in- the Flash Forward closing theme]

ROSE (Mono):
Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.

Thanks to all the patrons who sent in tape of what they were doing for the intro, including Derek Parrott, Kathryn Dollens, Kevin Chow, Joshua Vermeulen, Stephanie Hennen, Carl Sack, Ginny Treu, Charles Wallace, Libby Larson, Thomas Beckett, Andrés Ussa and Lex Pendragon.

Flash Forward only exists thanks to support from listeners. As you might know, the show has been completely independent for the last four years, and the only way that I can continue to explore these weird and wonderful futures with you is thanks to listener donations. If you want to become one of those people who is keeping this show going, you can learn more about how to become a Patron or a member of the Time Traveler Presents club by going to flashforwardpod.com/support.

This week- this very week!- I am actually bringing someone onto the team to help me make the show for the first time ever, and that is only possible because of direct support from listeners. In return for your support on Patreon or the membership program you can get things like goody bags, a book club, a newsletter, a bonus podcast, and so much more! So again, if you want any of those things, head to flashforwardpod.com/support.

If you want to suggest a future we should take on, you can send a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. I love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in this episode, you can email me there too. If you’re right, I will send you something cool.

And if you want to support the show, there are a couple of ways that you can do that as well. Head to flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. If financial giving is just not happening for you right now, which- makes complete sense, um, you can head to Apple Podcasts and leave the show a nice review, or just tell your friends about the show; be like ‘Hey. You are interested in the future; you like weird sci-fi stuff. Have you listened to this podcast that I like? It’s called Flash Forward.” It’s so easy; just do that. Maybe, like, less awkward. But that’s my version. (slight laugh) That really does help to spread the word about the show.

That’s all for this future; come back next time, and we’ll travel to a new one.

[Music fades out]