Physics: The Next 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 Years

Abstract

I am sure we all feel that in some sense or other there lies behind our experience of the natural world, as physicists, chemists, geologists and so on, some kind of unity, some kind of unifying principle, to which all natural phenomena lead back or from which, equivalently, all natural phenomena may be derived. I also suspect that some of us would wish to see ourselves – in the sense of our emotions, beliefs, prejudices, hopes, passions, commitments and resentments – incorporated into this grand unifying scheme so that our own behaviour would be as susceptible of rational explanation as that of the planets.