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It's mind blowing to imagine that the observable universe is bigger than 90 billion light years, space-time expanding at multiple times the speed of light. If
by ajnin 5y ago
It's mind blowing to imagine that the observable universe is bigger than 90 billion light years, space-time expanding at multiple times the speed of light.
If expansion keeps accelerating, then at some point gravity won't be able to keep the local cluster together and even those galaxies will drift away, then star systems, then planets, then matter itself will be torn apart until atoms and particles and quarks are destroyed. A dark future awaits indeed.
Something in my mind tells me that there must be more to it, the careful balance of universal constants that allow for matter and stars and life to exist surely would not allow it all to be destroyed forever in the end...
- zrm 5y ago> Something in my mind tells me that there must be more to it, the careful balance of universal constants that allow for matter and stars and life to exist surely would not allow it all to be destroyed forever in the end... Keep in mind that we don't really understand this stuff. "Dark matter" isn't a weird phase of matter, it's the name of the Keleven inserted because our observations of the universe don't match up with the theory. Ditto "dark energy." The expansion of the universe is accelerating and we don't know why. If we don't know why, we don't know it isn't going to stop tomorrow, or reverse, or happen differently based on where you are in the universe. The things we've already observed about relativity and quantum mechanics are very counter-intuitive. But at the same time, "I don't want it to" doesn't mean it's not going to happen. The arrow of time goes in one direction. We don't know how it ends until we get there.
- undersuit 5y ago>Keleven A wonderful use of the word.
- awb 5y ago> the careful balance of universal constants that allow for matter and stars and life to exist surely would not allow it all to be destroyed forever in the end... Imagine a brute-force creation of x^y universes with varying cosmological constants. Surely some universes with the right ingredients for life also include a deep freeze or a Big Crunch. Or, maybe our universe was created in a lab somewhere and they’re trying to figure out how to make a stable universe through experimentation. And we’re iteration #42.
- cbogie 5y ago42 would be the answer, huh. and in which case, were it to be true, we'd have a mighty strange prophetic bible on our hands. on second thought, at least it was entitled to be a poor man's manual for gettin around these parts.
- undersuit 5y agoWhat if our universal parameters don't make us much different than the universes with #41 being the answer and #43 being the answer... and of course the answer is guessed correctly in a satirical sci-fi in those respective universes. Just an infinite chain of universes where the initial variables determine the number/answer mentioned in one of Douglas Adam's books.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Gigachad 5y agoI saw a video proposing that it might be possible that the universe collapses on itself again and everything is reset. But there are more non reversible things going on than just expansion. I only just found out that all elements radioactively decay and will eventually be gone.
- undersuit 5y ago>I only just found out that all elements radioactively decay and will eventually be gone. Protons might have a half life too. Even hydrogen will be gone.
- lostmsu 5y agoThat does not work like that in the presence of other forces. E.g. you can "undecay" plutonium by pressing together lighter atomic nuclei.