The Strangest Question at the end of the Universe
Our energy demands are exploding. Natural hydrogen might be the breakthrough we need. MAX Power Mining just discovered North America’s first commercially viable natural hydrogen deposit. Clean, renewable energy straight from the Earth. Learn more: https://www.maxpowermining.com/
The year is 2061. Two engineers stand before a machine and ask it the only question that has ever really mattered, can the death of the universe be undone? The machine considers, and answers: not enough data. So the question is asked again. And again. Across a hundred thousand years, across galaxies humanity has not yet touched, the question returns, and the answer never changes. Not once, all the way to the end of time itself.
This is the world of Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question, a story most people remember as a meditation on limits, on the one problem too large for any civilization to solve. But there is another way to read it. Because every time these people leap forward, every time they build something greater than what came before, it happens for the same reason. They have found a new source of energy. And that is not just a detail in a story. That is the story of humanity.
00:00 The strangest question at the end of the Universe
01:59 The First Spark
06:33 Liquid Gold
11:50 White Gold
19:59 The Real Question
Aperture explores the ideas shaping how we think — philosophy, psychology,
and the hidden forces behind human behavior. New perspectives, every week.
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#universe #energy #entropy #humanity #future #energycrisis

@ApertureThinking
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Our energy demands are exploding. Natural hydrogen might be the breakthrough we need. MAX Power Mining just discovered North America’s first commercially viable natural hydrogen deposit. Clean, renewable energy straight from the Earth. Learn more: https://www.maxpowermining.com/
@anon-i6p
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Four logicians walk into a bar.
The bartender asks "Drinks for all of you?"
"I don't know" says the first. "I don't know" says the second. "I don't know" says the third. "Yes" says the last one.
It's the same deal with this short story. Not enough data to answer the question. Impossible to collect all the data until the end.
@mihai_mishulica
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
This video is just clickbait, nuclear energy literally has infinitely more potential than never ending hydrogen replenishment could ever have.
@mihai_mishulica
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
What about nuclear energy? Why didn't you talk about it?
@Damnedboy_5150
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Humans can’t save them fuckin selves got no chance at saving the universe😂😂😂😂
@AC_Unit11
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
3:15 "empty calories" is misused here. The issue is that the digestive system of the bear does not get any calories/energy out of the bone or head of the fish. This is not empty calories, its low calorie to volume ratio.
Empty calories are foods that are high in calories but low in nutrients, like candy. Kind of the opposite of what you meant there.
Great vid nonetheless
@TheSilverLute
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Man will destroy itself, the earth will heal, the clock will reset, and the cycle will repeat
@mikeanderson4759
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Does it bother anyone else that all the history, philosophy and science in this video ended up not only promoting one particular solution over others, but one specific company? Is this how we're doing infomercials now? 😂😢
@MrTkentgens
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
White gold, i think that titel goes to cocaine
@cconnoruk
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
So we'll written. Huge thank you.
@NTG-hg7zx
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Once heard a joke about saskatchewan (however you spell it) ,guy in a old folks home needs a bed bath, they decide to send a young trainee nurse in to do it, the old matron has seen previously he has a tattoo of the word "swan" on his private part, and wonders what the young hot nurse will make think of it, trainee nurse goes in completes the bed bath and comes back out to the matron, the matron asks innocently "did you happen to notice his….uh…tattoo…?" Young nurse goes "oh yeah, i tried not to stare but you know how these things are, it said saskatchewan didnt it?" 😂
@JonathanLink-i6q
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Maybe humans exceed what mother earth tried? We are parasites.
@kiasoe
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Humans fantasizing about saving the universe while running the Earth to the ground is the kind of peak comedy even Hollywood won't be able to come up with. Hypocrisy at its finest just as the race itself
@splenth
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Yes, "the decline of everything" WILL be undone: "But the day of the Lord will come in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." (2 Peter 3:10 / Rev 21:1 / Isaiah 65:17) This is a fallen world, therefore entropy, but it will be remade imperishable – it is promised
@I.amORaa
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
APERTURE SINCE U ALL KNOWING AND SEEM TO HAVE THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IN YOUR HANDS I NO LONGER WANNA BE PART OF IT I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS BULLSHIT
@I.amORaa
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
DEATH WILL SOLVE ALL THIS
@I.amORaa
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
let us die
@I.amORaa
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
why dont we just fucking die
@HumanBehaviorInsight
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Framing entropy through our energy transitions shows progress isn't just intelligence, but scale. Natural hydrogen could be the next rung—if we balance extraction with stewardship. Fascinating perspective!
@PatrickChiasson-s7x
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
I will write a book inspired by the video. Like this post so the channel owner can see this and we can work together to make the book as accurate, and interesting as possible for you guys.
@krokodilpil8335
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Nate Hagens on Youtube has some nice videos on this oil energy inheritance, which is basically an energy spike on the human timeline.
@IanK369
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
We can now see far enough to contemplate the end of the universe, and still we want to push past it. I'm tempted to frame this as a choice between heroic and tragic but, maybe it's a little of both.
@GoryWory
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Videos on this channel have become mass-produced slop.
Each time, we get an "awe-inspiring" recapitulation of human evolution and progress, all mixed with unsolved questions of physics and existentialist "koans" to "blow our minds even further…"
The only channel that makes actually good space/physics documentaries is History of the Universe.
And they drop one video every ~2 months, because it actually takes time and effort to make them.
And it actually has normal thumbnails — whoever runs that channel doesn't put his face everywhere, let alone in poorly edited thumbnail slop.
@AsAboveSoBelow85
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
So my cheating wife isnt to blame? We just always want more 🤔
@Nulomir
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Sounds good, just need to work out what the hell you're talking about! 🤔
@budwick9240
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
I don't think we could manufacture enough nukes to save the universe 😅
@calebpalmer7867
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
When we describe humanity spreading forth into the cosmos i feel a sense of dread. I'm not convinced humanity is even a net positive for life or even a conscious universe
@kennylol9943
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
So, can I be the first to say that living in Saskatchewan is amazing?! Is anyone else from this beautiful province?
@RSanchez111
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Thought it was going to be an interesting video on The Last Question but it just turned out to be a long ad
@Yaj9867
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
I think hunter gatherers would disagree with some of the statements you started out with. Firstly that they aren’t part of “humankind”. Also, surplus isn’t what gave us time to sit around and tell stories. Hunter gatherers had much more free time to sit and tell stories than people did once they took on the responsibilities and trappings of farming and civilization. Surplus created wealth inequality and was the beginning of the end of egalitarian societies. Our hunter gatherer ancestors were in many ways superior to us in the ways they lived in harmony with the land and took only what they needed.
@yurkdawg
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
Wow, I just read "The Last Question" just over a week ago! (I even referenced it in a comment on an aperture video lol…)
@BigSmokey3
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
What about Helium-3? Also, why aren’t we doing more with Enceladus?
@eminkuliyev3716
September 1, 2026 at 10:28 pm
I take the owner of this channel has zero hopes for fusion and thinks all of the current effort put into achieving it is one big scam.