5 ms·
Even if it expands at the speed of light, it would likely be outside of our observable universe though, right?
by 3pt14159 14y ago
Even if it expands at the speed of light, it would likely be outside of our observable universe though, right?
- klodolph 14y agoWell, if the theory is correct, it would not be observable until the moment we suddenly all died. But the important difference between "stable" and "metastable" is that metastable systems spontaneously collapse, whereas stable systems don't. According to the theory, we could be at a metastable vacuum energy state, which means that we could spontaneously drop to a lower energy state at any time. The difference between "metastable" and "unstable" is really just the time span involved.
- colomon 14y agoI found it very odd that the article seemed to insist we certainly had billions of years left -- how do we know the collapse didn't start billions of years ago?
- tribe 14y agoI believe the article mentioned that signs of such an event would be visible in the cosmic microwave background radiation, and right now we have not seen them.
- splat 14y agoSince the bubble expands faster than the speed of light, it would not be visible in the CMB. The reason that there should be billions of years left is just a statement about probability. Given that the universe has already lasted for billions of years, it would be very unlikely for it to end tomorrow (in fact the odds would be about one in a trillion). So at the very least the universe should last for at least about as long as it's lasted so far (though it could last much longer).
- ElectroPrime 14y agoActually, no, the bubble is supposed to expand at the speed of light.
- colomon 14y agoAs I understood the article, the bubble collapses at the speed of light. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're arguing that since we've had 15 billion years so far with no collapse, then odds are great that we've got billions more to go. My point is that if the bubble collapse is not instantaneous, then we don't actually know there's been no collapse so far.
- apapli 14y agoI gather so - we wouldn't be able to see it "coming".
- chris_mahan 14y agoit may already be coming... It may take another 100 million years to get to us...
- russell 14y agoIf it's outside our observable universe, would it ever get here? Maybe our universe get nibbled around the edges but still survives.
- dasil003 14y agoCouldn't help noticing this post was 26 mins ago right now.
- nickmain 14y agoAre you referring to the fact that the furthest galaxies are actually receding from us at faster than the speed of light (due to the expansion of space itself) ?