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NASA: Evidence Favors Infinitely Expanding Universe
Chris Gondek writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has a story here about how NASA is expected to announce this week that it has proved the existence of "dark energy," a cosmic force that counteracts gravity and will keep the universe expanding forever. The announcement will effectively demolish the theory that life will be wiped out in a "big crunch" when the universe collapses, and should end decades of academic dispute. Scientists ranging from Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist, to Albert Einstein, have argued that the universe eventually will stop expanding and then implode under the force of gravity, destroying all life. The Chicago Sun Times has also got some info."
but my money is on Hawking and Einstein, and not only because they had a handle on the metric system.
Dammit. Now I'm going to be able to feel my atoms growing farther apart all week.
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the combination is locked up in the safe. -- Peter DeVries
Now all I have to do is find out how to emit this energy and I can build starships!
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
So the universe won't be wiped out by a big crunch.
What a relief. I was worried.
The universe will be wiped out by the heat death of the universe instead.
(Or am I incorrect in my understanding?)
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
So all that money that I spent on "Big Crunch" insurance is going to waste?
-Valiss
Whoa....if it's in the Chicago Sun Times then it must be true!
Although NASA's discovery means the universe will go on forever, the same is not true for human life. As the universe expands, all the energy needed to keep the stars and galaxies alight will be used up. What will remain is a universe full of black holes, which after trillions of years will explode to leave nothing but dark energy
Thus finally allowing Mickey Mouse to pass into the public domain.
French Pussy : Priceless
"A long time ago, in a galaxy that is much farther away now..."?
You have to understand the era he grew up in to adequately answer this question. Mr. Crosby was a free-loving man and often bedded many of his attractive female co-stars.
He was a very good crooner.
This is how, not "The", but many, Bing Bangs happened.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
We eventually get ripped apart(by enthropy) rather than being crushed by gravity!
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
This is true... unless there is another mechanism that transforms some of the dark energy back to normal matter. This could result in a classic steady state model.
"Let there be light"
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
> Whew! That's a relief!
Reminds me of the story of the student of cosmology who frantically waved his hand until the annoyed professor finally called on him.
"Professor, would you mind repeating what you just said about the end of the universe?"
"I said that according to recent estimates it would take place in about 200 billion years."
"Oh, thank God, you really had me worried there for a minute! I though you said million!
How the hell can they predict what the universe is going to do in trillions of years, but I can't get an accurate weather forcast for the next 24 hours??
Buy the President
For a long time I have found it irritating that they talk about hypotheses like the big bang "theory" with the pretence that they have even the slightest idea what is going on.
With this new evidence, they still have no clue what the universe is up to as a whole. The whole thing was just an exercise in speculation no more informed than the Bible. It still is. It will remain that way for a very long time.
Just accept it, you are a bunch of pretentious hairless mutant monkeys living on an insignificant speck of dirt, and the universe isn't interested in bothering to tell you what is going on, and you are never going to figure it out in your lifetime.
Kind of amusing actually....
You're an engineer, aren't you?
Is it called the "Bing Bang" or the "Big Band"?
"This is the way the fucking world ends. Look at this fucking shit we're in man. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. And with a whimper, I'm fucking splitting, Jack."
Like a true slashdotter, I'll leave you to try to remember what it's from.
Everything that was once directly lived has receded into a representation. -debord
Billions of years ago life crawled out of the primordial sludge.
.
Slowly over many millions of years it evolved, learned to walk upright and became intelligent enough to know that it was fucked . .
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Several billion years ago someone got an e-mail message titled "INCREASE YOUR UNIVERSE SIZE!!!".
They hit reply and the rest is history.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Okay, great. The universe is expanding. But is it expanding quickly enough? By my calculations, the universe is not expanding quickly enough. The theoretical Heat Death of the expanding universe will not occur until long after the Starbucks Death of the universe.
That's right, the volume of Starbuckses is increasing at an accelerating rate. If this trend continues the entire universe will be filled with Starbuckses in 10^8 years, a tiny fraction of the time required for the Heat Death of the universe.
Peter
Downsize DC Today!
There will come a point when this /. thread no longer allows new replies. When that happens, if you still inclined to further enlighten me, my address is david@youdzone.com . (I assume yours is nurban@crib.corepower.com .)
I put the 'fun' in fundamentalism