The Clarion

Issue date: 9/24/08 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: MCT PHOTO

As our ever-advancing knowledge of the universe and the "theory of everything" continue to be refined into a collection of proven theories rather than a mess of hypothetical scientific dreaming, we constantly look ahead as to what these truths mean for the fate of our universe. It seems that the advancements of our knowledge of the universe act as a fortune-teller predicting our future, which as it turns out, is always drawing the death card. Every mathematical analysis, every fundamental particle analysis, and every chemical reaction theory all seem to predict the end of the universe. Cheerful people, these scientists are, huh?

It all begins with the Big Bang theory. The common idea is that the universe was filled with a high energy density, huge pressures and temperatures that rapidly expanded and cooled. Then a phase transition occurred that caused a rapid increase in expansion; a cosmic inflation. Particles were created and destroyed in high-energy collisions and the universe continued to expand. In short, reactions and collisions and expansion created matter and all we see (and don't see) in the universe.

The Big Crunch states that if the gravitational attraction of all matter is high enough, the universe will cease to expand and begin contracting in on itself to the point that black holes swallow everything, eventually breaking down the universe to one, singular, black hole. This is a reversal of the Big Bang theory, in which the universe reaches maximum expansion and then falls back in on itself; a sort of cosmic coming and going of the universal tides.

With a better understanding of both dark energy and phantom dark energy, scientists can further develop a theory known as the Big Rip. The Big Rip is based on the idea that the negative pressures and density of dark energy increase with time and therefore increase the rate of universal expansion, thus leading to a steady increase in the Hubble constant (the rate of universal expansion). This results in all material objects, beginning with galaxies all the way down to the smallest of life forms, disintegrating into radiation and unbound elementary particles; ripped apart by the force of phantom energy.

The Big Freeze theory, on the other hand, hypothesizes that as the universe will expand to the point that it is far too cold to sustain any life. Although this doesn't necessarily mean an end to the universe in terms of matter, it would mean the end of living things.

Continued...

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