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But the expansion of the universe is accelerating which tells us we are not in a big crunch scenario. And we have probed the laws of physics over very long dist
by danbruc 10y ago
But the expansion of the universe is accelerating which tells us we are not in a big crunch scenario. And we have probed the laws of physics over very long distances and far into the past by looking at very distant objects and have to date not found any strong evidence for varying laws of physics over space or time. There are for example some claims of variations in the fine structure constant but as far as I can tell those claimed variations may still be explained by experimental errors and are therefore not widely accepted.
- Rzah 10y agoIf space is curved rather than flat we could still have a big crunch on the far side.
- jryan49 10y agoI think consensus is that it is flat and we keep finding more and more evidence suggesting so.
- daveloyall 10y agoI heard that "if you go straight long enough, you end up where you were", as analogous to walking on the surface of a globe. Are you saying that evidence against that has surfaced?
- cygx 10y agoThe current assumption of the cosmological standard model is spatial flatness, which is compatible with the observations. In principle, space could still curve back on itself on a large enough scale, but assuming there's no big crunch coming, you'd have to go straight for a longer-than-infinite duration to come back to the place you started from.
- daveloyall 10y agoLonger than infinite? What does a big crunch have to do with it? Maybe I don't know what a big crunch is... I currently think the big crunch is the idea that gravity will eventually coalesce all matter into a single point.
- cygx 10y agoLonger than infinite? In an expanding universe, objects can be separated by a cosmic horizon. Nevertheless, from the comoving perspective, they may very well still move towards each other - but without ever meeting up. However, if you extended conformal time beyond infinity, they would. That's of course not physically possible, so that particular comment was tongue in cheek.