Kevin's Watch

Does it go on forever? What do you think?

I get the feeling that it is no mere coincidence that objects in the universe tend to take on the shape of a sphere. I suspect that far beyond the reaches of our ability to comprehend, the universe is most likely the interior of a tremendous sphere. Or some such crap.

IMO the amount of mass in the universe will be enough to stop and reverse the expansion, eventually causing the big crunch...but I, like anyone else, am not sure

I am undecided on this subject, myself. One recent theory I like the sound of, though, is that the universe we see is smaller than we think it is - that space folds in such a way that if we travelled in what seemed to us a straight line for long enough we would come back to where we started - a very strange idea. Apparently it may mean the universe is a little younger than we thought...


Edit - New Scientist article

No end. No. It just goes on and on until eventually the lights go out one by one, the black holes grow and grow, and finally, I have no one left to talk to.

Cromas Tummins wrote:I get the feeling that it is no mere coincidence that objects in the universe tend to take on the shape of a sphere.

As a matter of fact, it isn't. Its the most efficient, in terms of energy, shape. Oie, I don't know alot about physics, but it has something to do with bubbles I think


As for space itself, sure I'll believe there's an infinite amount of it. But I think, at the same time, that its probably still just an arbitrary slice of possibility; a set that projects into U.

The latest I read on the subject is that the Universe will expand and never retract (there isn't enough mass in it to start a reverse process) and slowly, very slowly will cool down and become totally dark. If this becomes true it's kind of sad...But maybe a black hole somwhere will suck everything in and spew everything out in another Universe...

That was me above...don't know what happened...

Hawking and National Geographic say that there is not nearly enough matter and dark matter combined to stop and reverse the expansion. But since everything within the universe goes through cycles, I wouldn't be surprised if the universe itself does also. Maybe there's something that we don't have a clue about just yet that will make it happen. Who knows? And if there is a Big Crunch, there's a fairly good chance I'll be dead before it happens, so I'm not terribly concerned.

Fist and Faith wrote:And if there is a Big Crunch, there's a fairly good chance I'll be dead before it happens, so I'm not terribly concerned.

What a healthy attitude! Bravo.

Cromas Tummins wrote:

Fist and Faith wrote:And if there is a Big Crunch, there's a fairly good chance I'll be dead before it happens, so I'm not terribly concerned.

What a healthy attitude! Bravo.

Bah, aren't you at least concerned about your poor atoms?! They'll be in such distress when the energy comes tumbling back and they're all smashed with other energies and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I should get to bed.

Lord Foul wrote:Bah, aren't you at least concerned about your poor atoms?! They'll be in such distress when the energy comes tumbling back and they're all smashed with other energies and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I should get to bed.

mmmmmmmm Sounds like an orgy!!! Maybe I should stay alive after all!

Yes, all that smashed-togetherness . . . Mmm . . . atoms . . . *Homer Simpson drool-sound*

Ugh. You two make me hope for eternal expansion.

Well how about that! An inhibited Giant ship!

Hey; there's some inlets and bays I just won't dock in, m'kay?

Mmm . . . inlets . . .

Yes, there doesn't appear to be enough matter and dark matter to stop the expansion. But, the current thinking is that there is some other mysterious force at work in aid of gravitational attraction, but we can't detect what it is or if it will be strong enough to stop the expansion...
Saying that, there's no way for sure of saying how much dark matter there actually is, as we can't really detect that either...

Hierachy wrote:Yes, there doesn't appear to be enough matter and dark matter to stop the expansion. But, the current thinking is that there is some other mysterious force at work in aid of gravitational attraction, but we can't detect what it is or if it will be strong enough to stop the expansion...

Yeah, I think they're calling it the cosmological constant, after Einstein's famous blunder.

Hierachy wrote:Saying that, there's no way for sure of saying how much dark matter there actually is, as we can't really detect that either...

As I understand it, the reason they suspect it exists at all is because many things are behaving as though something that, so far, cannot be directly detected is having a gravitational influence on them. It's true that they have no way of detecting the dark matter itself, but they only have to calculate the gravitational effect, and then calculate whether that's strong enough to pull the universe back in. Currently, they think not remotely. But I suspect they cannot measure such things perfectly yet. I mean, how long do you have to observe a galaxy that's 100,000,000,000 light years away before you can truly measure this effect? We've been at it for less than a hundred years, and we could be off on a few things, neh?

I think it's got to end somewhere though.