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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."
For a better look at points along the future timeline of the universe, see here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/universe.html
Contrary to the weather predictions, no one will complain about it.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Seriously.. can't we just leave the Big Answers to the Religions?
Because no one ever prayed up a better microchip. Pointless meditations on the true nature of atoms and light however.... Well, not so empty a pursuit as religion in retrospect. Your brand of incredulity is the wellspring of poverty.
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.
First idiot to mention a certain game with a protracted development schedule gets shot.
Anyone got a light for my sig?
I don't know. It might be that the Hubble constant and short term climate processes have nothing to do with each other and that trying to make some inference between them is just asinine.
I believe the summary is misleading. The researchers are not saying it will be a static universe, but that it will appear to be static.
The universe will keep expanding, but we will not be able to tell.
I repeat in greater detail...
As far as I know, the universe is expanding and the rate of expansion is increasing. IIRC, this will result in a situation with a shrinking event horizon, where the universe basically ceases to exist as space-time tears itself apart, and once the event horzon is less than the Planck Length, the universe itself ceases to exist. According to one study which, IIRC, has not been refuted, this will happen in some 20 billion years time. It's called the Big Rip.
So, from what I can gather, any speculation beyond 20 billion years is a waste of time.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Seriously.. can't we just leave the Big Answers to the Religions?
Because all religions that wield power abuse it.
Religions that have power are no longer religions - they are political ideologies. And politics are inherently corrupt and corrupting. Are atheist ideologies with power any less corrupt? Secular ideologies?
Religion is not the problem though other ideologies would like for you to believe it is as they attempt to increase their own power. Politics and the "will to power" are the human problem whether at the level of individuals or nations.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
The radiation in question is the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, or CMBR. The CMBR is (analogously speaking) an "echo" of the Big Bang, in the form of electromagnetic radiation. As space expanded, the radiation's wavelength expanded with it, slowly lengthening from the Gamma and X-ray spectrums, through visible light, to the microwave spectrum (where it is now). As space continues to expand, so will the wavelength of the Cosmic Background Radiation.
As an interesting side note, since analog TV operates in the same part of the radio and microwave spectrum that the CMBR is observed, if you tune an analog TV to a blank channel (static), about one percent of that static is the CMBR. Turn the TV on, and watch the Big Bang!
From what I understand of it:
Draw a sinewave on the surface a balloon. It has a set wavelength, right?
Now inflate the balloon to double it's previous size. The wavelength's longer now.
Same thing with the universe, except it's in 3D and in a trillion-year timeframe.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Hooray perspective! Now let's go out there and have some fun!
...Just enough time for another bath then...
While a dense enough universe could collapse into a "Big Crunch", that is not the hypothesized ending of our universe. The density of our universe is not dominated by matter, but by energy, such that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. You're right that it's difficult to extrapolate to a time several orders of magnitude greater than the current age of the universe, as currently-unknown physics could end up dominating. (Someone observing the universe about 8 billion years ago would have been unable to measure the energy density of the universe, for instance.) But that does mean we shouldn't even try?
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True. But we can predict that light bulb driven by a fixed battery will go dark within a predictable number of hours.
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The term you're looking for is red giant. Red dwarfs are just regular stars even smaller than our own, and the name comes from their reddish spectra.
>Isn't the universe supposed to collapse sooner than that?
.. greedy to say the least.
1) No, that's what we used to think before, but now our current measurement indicates that the expansion of the universe is accelerating not slowing towards a big crunch.
2) We don't even have an interesting theory (as in a theory which gives testable new predictions) which is compatible with both general relativity and quantum theory, so asking for a theory for what happened before the big-bang is
3) What is silly is comparing myths with science.
While the parent was a bit harsh, he really does characterize a certain sect of woo wooers out there who have never studied anything more than high school physics but somehow think that every working scientist is wrong and missing some crucial insight that they, of all people, are privy to.