ALTHOUGH all in life is open to interpretation and nothing can ever be entirely understood, there remains one great truth that stays the same no matter what corner of the universe you reside – all things must die.

While death pays the bill for existence, the process also frees the molecules that congregate to form physical mass in the first place. Perhaps they’ll eventually fuse to construct something as wondrous as a star – or even a seemingly inconsequential inanimate object like a Sunday newspaper. No matter what form physicality takes, however, all creations seems to share the universal law - that burning brighter than the rest often means dying young.

Death’s inevitability shouldn’t get us down, however. As a four billion-year-old rock’s latest skin condition, our wee flash of existence spinning around a nuclear furnace somewhere in infinity is surely miraculous enough an occurrence to fuel eternal gratitude for even a single moment of consciousness.

Perhaps it’s time to accept there’s an obvious reason for the silence of ancient skygods, and learn to revel in the fact that we are finite creatures – yet ones still destined for eternal life. Our fundamental building blocks will go on to endlessly recallibrate and create new forms of existence, all the way until the last star in the universe burns out. We are all stardust. Even Dick Cheney.

In the dawn of this new era of enlightenment, perhaps the Sabbath day will be reserved for simply worshipping the arrow of time – and remember that you’ll now have a lot more spare time on Sundays. Fill that new new gaping chasm in your life by praising each single second of those billion years of forward motion that allowed your evolution, all leading up to this exact moment where your eyes absorbed just enough light from the nearest star to read these words over a bowl of muesli and broccoli smoothie. Well, you’re still a Sunday Herald reader, if only for one more day.

That said, it should be acknowledged this may actually not actually be the end. It’s entirely possible you will again hold this newspaper in your hands. You may have to wait a few trillion years, however.

If some astrophysicists are right, the ongoing expansion of the universe – 13.8 billion years old and counting – may one day halt and then begin to collapse upon itself. At this point, it’s speculated that time may possibly run backwards in a process referred to as the ‘Big Crunch’, with all events that ever took place being replayed once again. Even that time Cheggers got his old chap out on telly.

Presently, there are three main theories which speculate the fate of the our universe. The first, and most widely accepted after the 1998 discovery that dark matter drives expansion, is that it will keep on growing outward forever in eternal inflation. The second theory suggests it will expand until all “dark energy” is exhausted and the last star finally fizzles out, leaving nothing but a cold, eternal darkness - a terrifying scenario known as the ‘Big Freeze’ where there will almost certainly be no bread left in the shops.

The third theory, however, remains the most fascinating and optimistic premise if you fancy some form of eternal life – positing the notion that once all dark energy is exhausted, a gravitational pull will cause the universe to shrink then fall in upon itself like a collapsed souffle, deflating all the way back to the ping pong-sized ball of fizzing particles that expanded at the Big Bang. No need for any immediate panic however, as the “Big Crunch” won’t take place for many billions of years. So keep stockpiling that Nutella in the event of “no deal”.

Although “The Big Crunch” has fallen out of fashion as a cosmological theory in recent decades, many leading astrophysicists still subscribe to the possibly of a universe that eternally contracts and expands. Perhaps we’re simply some superbeing’s stress toy – the “whole world in his hands” indeed.

The esteemed Andrei Linde of Stanford University and his colleagues remain fans of this theory – not the stress toy one, the “Big Crunch” – calculating that this collapse in spacetime may actually only be 10 to 20 billion years off, a relative blink in the eye of infinity and much sooner than other similarly-minded theorists have calculated. Eminent UK Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees of Cambridge University, also keeps an open mind, agreeing that a future implosion of the universe is entirely possible. “Since we have no idea what the dark energy is, such scenarios cannot be ruled out,” he says.

So whether you’re reading this now or in a few hundred billion years time (this time like a real man, from the back page to the cover), take comfort that our perceptions of death – and all past, present and future – are quite likely meaningless in the eye of infinity.

And even if the “Big Crunch” is nonsense physics and this truly is the “final” Sunday Herald, we can always take comfort from the first law of thermodynamics – no energy ever leaves the universe. The forward arrow of time may gift physical mass with existence, but it’s only death that gives anything meaning.

THE REGENERATION GAME

FOR this final Sunday Herald column, please afford me some indulgence. Even more than usual. If you were a regular reader (at least double figures before they got rid of the sub-editors) you’ll perhaps agree that much of what was allowed to appear on this page was simply poo-pooing the modern age – a weekly eulogy for the fields-of-wheat era before Big Tech’s successful enslavement of humanity. Less charitable readers may suggest I cut that sentence off at “poo”.

Despite always aiming for that old newspaper maxim of educating, entertaining and informing, I admittedly fell short of this target on occasion – favouring awful end-of-the-pier one liners, Carry On innuendo and irreverence in lieu of an insightful perceptive on science and technology’s breakneck quickening of societal evolution. Which, ironically, has been exactly the “future shock” which delivered the final coup de grâce to the Sunday Herald.

But this is not the end. On this wee oasis of liberalism’s final day of existence, there is still room for optimism in the universe. The rapid expansion of spacetime continues apace, with exploded supernovae materials being endlessly recycled into countless new galaxies full of wonder and magic.

And, as the corpses of these dead stars endlessly seed the surrounding cosmos like space dandelions, the Sunday Herald’s death has similarly fertilised the ground at Herald towers to birth two new titles.

By a similarly miraculous happenstance, I’ve been chosen to perform a Dr Who-style regeneration within the pages of the new Herald On Sunday, an honour surely only explicable by my dear old mum filling in quite a few forms in that recent Sunday Herald reader questionnaire.

One year ago, when I first suggested writing a column of irreverent musings on science and technology to former Sunday Herald editor Neil Mackay, he was surprisingly enthusiastic and suggested the name “Future Shock”. When I say suggested, I mean he told me what it was going to be called. Preferring the painfully punning ‘Everything With Chips’, I grudgingly accepted Neil’s garish moniker – not yet appreciating his instincts were absolutely right.

The term “future shock” – which can be defined as a paralysis of the mind caused by too much change too soon – perfectly embodies both the wonder and horror many of us feel witnessing the seismic changes currently taking place in society due to astonishing technological and scientific advancements.

The death of newspapers may be an unavoidable consequence of such a fickle, fast-food world, but if you choose to join me on the other side, we can continue to explore the reverberations of such societal “progress” together. All interspersed with a healthy dose of filth and frivolity, of course.