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I'm not an astrophysicist, not even close (and I haven't read the article) but making a statement like this seems bold. Who can predict how the universe will ev

I'm not an astrophysicist, not even close (and I haven't read the article) but making a statement like this seems bold. Who can predict how the universe will evolve in the next 1000's of billions of years, there are just too many unknowns, no?

bjo590 6y ago
We don't know with certainty how the universe will change in the future, however we do have a decent understanding of how the universe works at a large scale. We can use that understanding to make hypothesis that are backed by both data and theory. This is one such hypothesis. This is part of the scientific method. In astrophysics data is collected and new experiments are done to improve theory, and it helps us better understand the history of the universe and the future of the universe. Our understanding will change over time.
cthalupa 6y ago
>there are just too many unknowns, no? Yes and no. Mostly likely, no. We understand a lot of the big picture stuff pretty well, and the parts we don't have a full grasp on, like dark matter, don't really impact star formation, or like dark energy, have an impact that will make matter less concentrated, and thus stars less likely to form. We're pretty confident in general that we know what the ultimate fate of the universe will be - entropy will increase. Stars will go out, ultimately fading into iron or collapsing into black holes, expansion will eventually push all the galaxies away from each other (though some galaxies are close enough they will remain gravitationally bound together until they eventually merge or potentially eject each other), black holes will slowly evaporate, and eventually the universe will be cooled down to absolute 0. There are some gotchas here. We can't account for things like being in a false vacuum, the possibility that worm holes might be able to bridge into other universes (and the variety of potential outcomes there), quantum tunneling or other quantum effects potentially being able to cause a big bang type event, or some other exotic theory that the math says might potentially be possible but lacks much in the way of evidence. Maybe we'll master physics and be able to keep bringing new matter into our universe and prevent the heat death. If we can do that it'd probably be easier for everyone to just keep universe hopping, but maybe we'll be sentimental. But a lot of that stuff is more likely to be science fiction than science fact. Our cosmological models today do a pretty good job of things at the large scale, and most of the most shocking discoveries don't do anything to fundamentally alter what we think the ultimate fate of the universe is. We've got to figure out a way to reconcile some models together, which will be no small feat, and maybe that will mean some universe shattering conclusions as to where things will all end up, but we don't have much reason to think that. Of course, the universe and how it all works is a pretty big topic. Humans are pretty limited. So there's always the caveat that we might just be really really wrong about things. But I don't know if working from that assumption is particularly useful.

bjo590 6y ago

We don't know with certainty how the universe will change in the future, however we do have a decent understanding of how the universe works at a large scale. We can use that understanding to make hypothesis that are backed by both data and theory. This is one such hypothesis. This is part of the scientific method. In astrophysics data is collected and new experiments are done to improve theory, and it helps us better understand the history of the universe and the future of the universe. Our understanding will change over time.

cthalupa 6y ago

>there are just too many unknowns, no? Yes and no. Mostly likely, no. We understand a lot of the big picture stuff pretty well, and the parts we don't have a full grasp on, like dark matter, don't really impact star formation, or like dark energy, have an impact that will make matter less concentrated, and thus stars less likely to form. We're pretty confident in general that we know what the ultimate fate of the universe will be - entropy will increase. Stars will go out, ultimately fading into iron or collapsing into black holes, expansion will eventually push all the galaxies away from each other (though some galaxies are close enough they will remain gravitationally bound together until they eventually merge or potentially eject each other), black holes will slowly evaporate, and eventually the universe will be cooled down to absolute 0. There are some gotchas here. We can't account for things like being in a false vacuum, the possibility that worm holes might be able to bridge into other universes (and the variety of potential outcomes there), quantum tunneling or other quantum effects potentially being able to cause a big bang type event, or some other exotic theory that the math says might potentially be possible but lacks much in the way of evidence. Maybe we'll master physics and be able to keep bringing new matter into our universe and prevent the heat death. If we can do that it'd probably be easier for everyone to just keep universe hopping, but maybe we'll be sentimental. But a lot of that stuff is more likely to be science fiction than science fact. Our cosmological models today do a pretty good job of things at the large scale, and most of the most shocking discoveries don't do anything to fundamentally alter what we think the ultimate fate of the universe is. We've got to figure out a way to reconcile some models together, which will be no small feat, and maybe that will mean some universe shattering conclusions as to where things will all end up, but we don't have much reason to think that. Of course, the universe and how it all works is a pretty big topic. Humans are pretty limited. So there's always the caveat that we might just be really really wrong about things. But I don't know if working from that assumption is particularly useful.