| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 1/7/2008 4:51:32 PM | Well, I've no solid education on what Dark Matter is, or the breadth of radioactive decay. However, I can say that any destruction that we perceive is creation in the eyes of another. The theoretical big bang is seen as the moment of creation, but at the same time it's an explosion above all other explosions, which we generally see as destructive. Likewise, the theoretical creationist concept of everything being formed is both destruction (of the state of nothing which is still a state) and creation.
SO, if our puny science is thus far correct and there can be no more reactions that produce heat, what happens then? The universe changes ... again. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 1/8/2008 8:29:08 AM |
Oh really? Says who? You?
Yes, says me. That's why I said proposed, without asserting absolute certainty and referenced all of known existence following the same pattern as evidence. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 1/8/2008 9:08:24 PM | I'm not too sure about Dark Matter, because at this time, we simply don't know for sure what it is, except that is makes up around 95% of "gravitational" matter in the Universe. The remaining 5% consisting of visible matter like stars and planets.
I've read some topics about the fate of the Universe a while back. It was believed that we'd either have a Big Crunch, or more unlikely, coast to a Steady State. But given recent observations of Super Nova stellar phenomena, scientists now claim that not only is the Universe expanding, but it is expanding at a ever and ever greater rate.
Hence we could end up with the Big Rip, where literally the Universe gets TORN apart. Even the very quarks themselves, despite the strong Nuclear Force (the strongest force known to exist) will rip themselves apart.
It is very difficult to conjecture what would happen in a Universe, possibly ripped into Superstrings and Membranes (if they exist), but according to some theories regarding Black Holes (Quantum Singularities), so much time would have elapsed that Quantum Singularities could actually evaporate all together and release a tremendous amount of energy.
Whether or not these energetic events could kick start new processes in the Universe is open to debate. But ultimately, some people just think the Universe will simply rip itself into it's fundamental constituent bits (whatever they may be) and then, thanks to some form of quantum mechanically tunnelling (plus a absolutely HUGE amount of time, on the order of billions upon billions times the current life time of the Universe), these constitutes will simple tunnel themselves away... Into what, is again high conjecture.
But anyway, it seems we're heading for a cold death instead of the hot one in the Big Crunch scenario. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 1/10/2008 8:29:24 AM | Personally, I think the end (if we could really call it an end) of this universe will only add to the beginnings of many others... I don't buy the big crunch theory as I see the growth of the universe more like the veins in a leaf, but without the edges of the leaf (crack in the windsheild?)... Or a plume of smoke, to be absorbed by the rest.
I would guess that if the universe started collapsing on itself, we'd notice the planets revolving backwards.
I believe in a beginning to this particular universe (big bang) and the process it's going through, but I don't believe in an end... Just change. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 1/10/2008 11:12:54 PM | .
I guess I do not subscribe to either a beginning or an end.
I see the universe as one of these heated oil lamps in super slow motion but unlike the oil lamp where the blobs of oil actually separate completely, I see it as only getting thinner but remaining connected, subtracting and combining in an endless cycle of mega zillions of years.
I have not found any justification to think that somehow all the matter in the universe was just sort of all hanging out together just decided to blow up and forever expend only to once again at some point in the future contract and hang out again.
Some quick thought on the matter begs the question; as bodies move farther apart, hence their interaction with each other becomes less and less that seems to be inverse to what would be a required force to pull it together but more so suggests it will expand into infinity as there is no force to pull it back.
Just a thought on the commonly accepted big bang.
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 1/11/2008 3:30:51 AM | | I agree with NwMke,there is no beginning or an end...it is our interpetation of perceived observation, also, there appears to be a problem in physics with regard to distant objects...that is...they are accelerating! how can this be so? | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 1/11/2008 6:59:40 AM | Just as it relates to the "Big Crunch" Theory. Wouldn't the big crunch be sort of like a big Universal black hole where everything gets sucked and squezeed in out of existance?
In a similar question, regarding the hypothetical "White Holes", do you think they may be somehow similar to the so called "Big Bang" theory, just like Black holes may atleast appear to be similar to the big crunch theory? | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/2/2009 8:48:11 PM | | I think the current theory of the expansion of the universe has everything expanding dozens of billions of years from now into an energy haze. No more stars, galaxies, planets, iphones......space-time expands so much, everything breaks down. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/2/2009 9:25:16 PM | I have not found any justification to think that somehow all the matter in the universe was just sort of all hanging out together just decided to blow up
I'm not sure where a lay person would find that justification. In the drying machine? Theoretical physicists who spend their lives studying this sort of thing seem to have MUCH justification for believing the big bang occured. Using our current physical construct and extrapolating back to the first minutes of the universe, the mathematics seem to fit. Unless something better comes along, its the best we have.
I dont think the matter was hanging out together (but if they were, i like to picture them giving each other pedicures, while drinking Fanta), i think the leading theory is that the explosion itself and the first few minutes after the explosion was what created matter as we know it.
Einstein once felt that the universe was static, and had always been there. When his calculations contradicted his thoughts, he fudges in a new part to the equation, known as the Cosmological Constant. This constant made it seem as if the universe could have been around forever. Later, however, Einstein was quoted as saying "[The cosmological constant] is the single greatest blunder of my life". He finally accepted that the universe is expanding from a very small initial point.
We're not hardwired as humans to accept that things have an end and a beginning. When we are young, we cant imagine our mommy dying and never coming back. Our minds are too concrete, we cant understand finality. You'll hear of kids under the age of 10 committing suicide, and wonder how. Well, kids at that age, dont usually have a solid grasp of finality. If they get in a huge fight with their parents, and feel victimized, IN THEIR MINDS they can solve the problem by killing themselves, then hiding away and watching their parents cry over them at their own funeral..and at the last minute jump out of a closet and say "i'm back...see you shouldnt have punished me like that, it made me sad". Sadly, we know they never do come back.
Even some adults have trouble thinking of the earth itself having an ending and a beginning. Slightly more sophisticated people have trouble imagining our sun coming to an end, and even deeper thinkers have trouble with a chronologically finite Universe. But Science supports it. But have no fear, we still have so much to discover...like what will be left in our universe's place if it contracts? IS this even a valid question to ask because we dont know the nature of physics outside our universe. One thing i can quarantee you....we wont be around to see the day we look outside the universe (at least not me, I eat fast food daily), but i guarantee that it will be far more amazing and mind-boggling than any static universe theories you are thinking now. Let science open it up for you. Dont resist. Our grandchildren might be in for quite a ride.
greg | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/3/2009 9:21:58 PM | | The greatest change in cosmological theory has been the escalation of the sheer numbers -- size and scale of everything -- as before cosmology was thought in terms of parallel universes or n-plex universes -- hyperinflation at singularity -- now it's clear the number of universes is beyond any level of human comprehension -- for example being immense multiples of the number of fundamental particles in the universe in which we are confined. And think of those numbers growing exponentially with each time quanta from instantiation. For many years I fancied I might come to some understanding -- but there came a point about twenty or so years ago when it became painfully obvious that it completely transcends us. Well, it transcends me anyway... | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/4/2009 2:08:29 AM |
I'm not sure where a lay person would find that justification. In the drying machine? Theoretical physicists who spend their lives studying this sort of thing seem to have MUCH justification for believing the big bang occured. Using our current physical construct and extrapolating back to the first minutes of the universe, the mathematics seem to fit. Unless something better comes along, its the best we have.
The problem arises in addressing how the material came to be positioned and how the explosion came about. You cannot dogmatically state that the big bang came out of nowhere from matter/energy that was "just there" without admitting the same lapses in logic that religious/spiritual people appeal to when they appeal to the authority of a self-created deity who stemmed from nowhere. That matter/energy, even in no form that we would recognize today, still existed in order for the explosion to come about. Existence implies origin. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/4/2009 4:09:09 AM | Aww, c'mon follks don't you all know that in the end there will be the rapture and we'll all be either raised up to heaven or sent to the pits of hell. LOL.
No, really, in all seriousness, entropy always wins in the end.
It really won't matter what dark matter is made up of, which at this time we really have no idea, frankly we know so little about the universe. Most matter we know is there we know because it produces or alters light. Dark matter could simply be clouds of dust sitting so far away from anything that produces light that it cannot be detected by means other than gravitational lensing from things behind it.
Or it could be some other substance entirely. Who knows, not likely in this decade.
When everything dissipates out into space we will have ceased to exist for many billions of years, and then the universe will simply sit and be a cold piece of existence in the multiverse scrapyard. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/4/2009 1:14:51 PM |
Hence we could end up with the Big Rip, where literally the Universe gets TORN apart. Even the very quarks themselves, despite the strong Nuclear Force (the strongest force known to exist) will rip themselves apart.
Kinky**stard gives a good outline.
The most resent data suggest the universe will expand indefinitely. The tendency to move toward equilibrium is driving the universe to expand; the strongest force know to exist is absolute vacuum, with the potential to compel on the order of 10^120kg/cm^3.
The acceleration of expansion could be an indication that the superposition of mass density suppresses the strength of vacuum, in addition to the obvious decrease in vacuum density. This could explain why currently expansion is insignificant locally.
The big rip theory extrapolates a possible future; as the mass density decreases the strength the vacuum increases as well as the vacuum density, causing the acceleration of linear expansion. Following the increase in vacuum energy; it will nullify the force of gravity and electromagnetism one object to another. However, the strong nuclear force is a judo master; any energy used to separate constitutes (quarks) from the nucleus is transformed to matter within the volume of the separation, naturally occupying emptiness.
I find this interesting; the extrapolated acceleration slope of expansion increases so steeply at the point it matches the strong force as the quarks begin to separate the volume will convert to mass; during the time the strong force would take to quantize the energy source, the volume of a nucleus would expand to several times the size of the visible universe. Every point within the volume would be an evenly saturated gluon filed, hot and dense.
I don’t care to rewind the clock to suggest this is how the big bang stared; as I like to say, any guess about before the big bang is as invalid as the next. I can’t help but see how this big rip scenario ends up looking suspiciously like a big bang. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/4/2009 3:32:51 PM | | I thought the prevailing theory of the end of the universe was the big crunch, literally the opposite of the big bang. If that theory was proven, I wish the big crunch turned out like that Red Dwarf episode where the crew visit a universe going through the big crunch where times goes backwards :-D | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/4/2009 5:31:03 PM | | I'm glad I'll be dead if there really is a Big Rip, because I'd hate to have to smell it. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/6/2009 9:16:44 AM |
I thought the prevailing theory of the end of the universe was the big crunch, literally the opposite of the big bang. If that theory was proven, I wish the big crunch turned out like that Red Dwarf episode where the crew visit a universe going through the big crunch where times goes backwards :-D
As few as 5 years ago, the big crunch was one of the possibilities. Over the last 8 years the data on the mass density and the curvature of space has ruled out a big crunch.
“Follow the Rimmer shpaded blur.” | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/6/2009 10:34:15 AM |
You cannot dogmatically state that the big bang came out of nowhere from matter/energy that was "just there" without admitting the same lapses in logic that religious/spiritual people appeal to when they appeal to the authority of a self-created deity
You're logic is a little faulty here.
Science is a process, its a journey to get ever closer to the truth of things. So far the journey of science regarding the very early universe has pointed towards an initial expansion (the big bang) from something extremely small. Physicists have shown this using math, and it has been accepted almost without exception in the physics community. NOW, the next step, is to ask, what caused this big bang to happen? He havent successfully tackled that yet. We're working on it. No one is claiming that , as you put it "the big bang came out of nowhere from matter/energy that was "just there". We are claiming that we dont know exactly yet. But that doesnt invalidate the science up to this point. Your question assumes alot. For one thing, we dont even know what the universe is expanding INTO...what type of energy or matter is OUTSIDE the universe.....there's no reason to assume that the big bang came out of nowhere...it may have come from the fabric of a universe that surrounds our universe....why assume that outside our universe is nothing? and what is nothing?
I have no idea why you equate this to religious dogma. There's no dogma. You wont find a scientist who says "yep, big bang came from nothing....its just a fact...now give me 20 Hail Mary's"
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/6/2009 3:27:03 PM |
I have no idea why you equate this to religious dogma. There's no dogma. You wont find a scientist who says "yep, big bang came from nothing....its just a fact...now give me 20 Hail Mary's"
Although Science doesn't admit hard limits to knowledge of the Physical world (only soft ones, i.e. improvements in technology, accuracy of measurement, etc.), that does not mean there aren't any. I took the poster's response to mean just this. The question, "but where did that come from..." either goes on ad-infinitum, or ends with, "it just is". | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/6/2009 3:44:13 PM |
Although Science doesn't admit hard limits to knowledge of the Physical world (only soft ones, i.e. improvements in technology, accuracy of measurement, etc.), that does not mean there aren't any. I took the poster's response to mean just this. The question, "but where did that come from..." either goes on ad-infinitum, or ends with, "it just is".
there ARE hard limits to knowledge of the Physical world, and science does admit them: acceptance of relativity theory and, 20 years later, quantum mechanics. Science just tries to explain the observations. Ultimately, there is no dogma. Religion will in the end have to conform to science....the reverse will NEVER happen. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/6/2009 4:38:22 PM | With a certain amount of trepidation on on my part, let me suggest an idea that I've been wondering about.
If the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing, then it must have been formerly expanding more slowly that it currently is. Now let's "run the movie backwards" (so that we see the universe "collapsing" instead of expanding).
My question: Is it possible that this backward-playing "movie" might never actually get to the big bang in any finite period of time? (The smaller we see the universe becoming, the slower it's size is changing.) In other words, is it possible that the big bang might have actually occurred infinitely far in the past? If so, then the universe would have "always been here" (in a sense).
(Mister Logic now silently runs away and hides while everybody shoots down his silly idea.) | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/6/2009 5:37:27 PM |
My question: Is it possible that this backward-playing "movie" might never actually get to the big bang in any finite period of time? (The smaller we see the universe becoming, the slower it's size is changing.) In other words, is it possible that the big bang might have actually occurred infinitely far in the past? If so, then the universe would have "always been here" (in a sense).
The expansion of the universe has only been accelerating for the last 8 billion years; up to that point it was decelerating from an inflation that started 13.7 billion years ago. | |
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| The End Of The Universe
Posted: 7/6/2009 6:00:24 PM | | Our limited scientific understanding cannot really answer the OP's question. However my thinking is that creation or evolution depending on how you express it is ongoing. I admit it's faith based, because it can be truley confirmed one way or the other at this time. | |
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