Questions and Answers

Guybrush · 10-13-2009, 01:46 AM

Oh well, seems my thread didn't work out as well as I hoped. I had to go out there and have a look. I quickly came across an article by Michael D. Lemonick from Times magazine.

TIME.com - End of the Universe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Times Article

That means that the 100 billion or so galaxies we can now see though our telescopes will zip out of range, one by one. Tens of billions of years from now, the Milky Way will be the only galaxy we're directly aware of (other nearby galaxies, including the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Andromeda galaxy, will have drifted into, and merged with, the Milky Way).

By then the sun will have shrunk to a white dwarf, giving little light and even less heat to whatever is left of Earth, and entered a long, lingering death that could last 100 trillion years—or a thousand times longer than the cosmos has existed to date. The same will happen to most other stars, although a few will end their lives as blazing supernovas. Finally, though, all that will be left in the cosmos will be black holes, the burnt-out cinders of stars and the dead husks of planets. The universe will be cold and black.

But that's not the end, according to University of Michigan astrophysicist Fred Adams. An expert on the fate of the cosmos and co-author with Greg Laughlin of The Five Ages of the Universe (Touchstone Books; 2000), Adams predicts that all this dead matter will eventually collapse into black holes. By the time the universe is 1 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years old, the black holes themselves will disintegrate into stray particles, which will bind loosely to form individual "atoms" larger than the size of today's universe. Eventually, even these will decay, leaving a featureless, infinitely large void. And that will be that—unless, of course, whatever inconceivable event that launched the original Big Bang should recur, and the ultimate free lunch is served once more.

There was also a link to the universe's timeline there which was interesting.

>> http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101.../timeline.html

These events are undoubtedly disputed, so if some astronomer or phycisist should drop by, some more input would be appreciated.

VEGANGELICA · 10-13-2009, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toretorden

Oh well, seems my thread didn't work out as well as I hoped. I had to go out there and have a look. I quickly came across an article by Michael D. Lemonick from Times magazine.
TIME.com - End of the Universe

There was also a link to the universe's timeline there which was interesting.
>> TIME.com - End of the Universe

These events are undoubtedly disputed, so if some astronomer or phycisist should drop by, some more input would be appreciated.

Hi Toretorden,
While I am not a physicist, my dad is, and based on discussions with him I can say that your cited article's description of the universe's eternal expansion sounds correct. In other words, no "collapse" is predicted, but rather an infinite expansion...resulting in matter becoming farther and farther apart. I recommend you check out this article in Scientific American Magazine, because the article describes the evidence that led scientists to conclude there was a Big Bang, followed by continual and accelerating expansion of the universe:

Quote:

From the March 2008 Scientific American Magazine
"The End of Cosmology? An accelerating universe wipes out traces of its own origins"
By Lawrence M. Krauss and Robert J. Scherrer
The End of Cosmology?: Scientific American

A dramatic discovery almost a decade ago motivated our study. Two different groups of astronomers traced the expansion of the universe over the past five billion years and found that it appears to be speeding up. The source of this cosmic antigravity is thought to be some new form of “dark energy” associated with empty space.

Dark energy will have an enormous impact on the future of the universe. With cosmologist Glenn Starkman of Case Western Reserve University, Krauss explored the implications for the fate of life in a universe with a cosmological constant. The prognosis: not good.

The quickening expansion will eventually pull galaxies apart faster than light, causing them to drop out of view. This process eliminates reference points for measuring expansion and dilutes the distinctive products of the big bang to nothingness. In short, it erases all the signs that a big bang ever occurred.