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A Snapshot of the Universe 3 Trillion Years From Now
ultracool wrote with a link to a Science Daily article that requires that you think long term. Really long term. Case Western Reserve University physicists are theorizing that trillions of years from now the universe will become 'static'. Essentially, the information that we use to gauge our Galaxy's position in the universe will have moved beyond the 'visible horizon. "What remains will be 'an island universe' made from the Milky Way and its nearby galactic Local Group neighbors in an overwhelmingly dark void ... The researchers followed up that discussion with one tracking early elements like helium and deuterium produced in the Big Bang. They predict systems that allow us to detect primordial deuterium will be dispersed throughout the universe to become undetectable, while helium in concentrations of approximately 25 percent at the Big Bang will become indiscernible as stars will produce far more helium in the course of their lives to cloud the origins of the early universe."
Doesn't this mean that the universe may be much older than we can currently detect in that there may be a lot more of it out there beyond our current event horizon which drops off at about 13.7 billion years? Maybe it is 20 or 30 billion years old but we can only detect it to the 13.7 billion year line.
Why can't I turn this around and say, "Some of us still obsess with thinking we know the meaning of life . . . Can't we just leave the Big Answers to the Sciences?" It's a different approach to trying to understand the universe. You're free to think that scientists are arrogant, but they're no less arrogant than you are in your comment.
I'm not sure what happens on planets and the deep layers of Earth matter for the expansion of the universe, or to generalize, what geology have to do with cosmology, so I'm not sure what a better understanding of those things would help the understanding of this. It would be far less than the scale of how a golf ball affect the rotation of Earth. And as for this research, they're simply extrapolating from what's been seen to happen in the past. And when you think about it, there's not many end stations for the universe. It's either a big crunch, static universe, or a big rip. If there's enough black matter, perhaps we have yet to see the force of the big bang being overtaken by the gravity of all the mass though.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I agree.
Another theory is that the particles will decay.
What happens then?
Something cool. New universe?