End of the universe

[Shrykull]

Ok, let's say that the will be no big crunch at the universe will not revert back to the state it was in before the big bang, that it will expand indefinitely, will it end when every star burns out and every black hole evaporates, leaving nothing but formless energy flying around it?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Ok, let's say that the will be no big crunch at the universe will not revert back to the state it was in before the big bang, that it will expand indefinitely, will it end when every star burns out and every black hole evaporates, leaving nothing but formless energy flying around it?

Well, it will expand forever growing colder and colder and colder. And no, there isn't goint to be a big crunch, so that's pretty much what is going to happen to the universe.

[Eframepilot]

Yeah, it will. Depressing, isn't it? Of course it doesn't have to stay that way forever. We currently have no idea what the mysterious "dark energy" driving the universe's acceleration is and it is possible that it may "run out" allowing gravity to collapse the universe back to its initial condition.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Yeah, it will. Depressing, isn't it? Of course it doesn't have to stay that way forever. We currently have no idea what the mysterious "dark energy" driving the universe's acceleration is and it is possible that it may "run out" allowing gravity to collapse the universe back to its initial condition.

Actually, the bigger the universe gets, the harder it would get to pull everything back together again. Entropy doesn't run in reverse. The universe, it seems, will only continue to seek lower and lower energy states and move towards greater and greater levels of entropy.

[Shrykull]

Well, it will expand forever growing colder and colder and colder. And no, there isn't goint to be a big crunch, so that's pretty much what is going to happen to the universe.

but what about the stars, won't they eventually run out of fuel and burn out, and black holes shrinking and shrinking until they evaporate?

[Baron Scarpia]

Ok, let's say that the will be no big crunch at the universe will not revert back to the state it was in before the big bang, that it will expand indefinitely, will it end when every star burns out and every black hole evaporates, leaving nothing but formless energy flying around it?

There are two theories. The first is just that every galaxy drifts apart. So about 15-20 billion years from now, we will be beyond any possible contact with any other galaxy. Of course, by that point the sun and the earth won't be around any more, but that's not the point. Things would then just keep drifting until all the stars burned out and everything was just a bunch of dead, sparse matter floating in a void.

The other theory is far more spectacular, and that's the "Big Rip." This basically theorizes that the dark energy that is causing the acceleration of universal expansion will eventually destroy everything, even matter itself, ripping it all apart in a massive catastrophe. This is also probably 20 billion years out, so no worries.

[Eframepilot]

Actually, the bigger the universe gets, the harder it would get to pull everything back together again. Entropy doesn't run in reverse. The universe, it seems, will only continue to seek lower and lower energy states and move towards greater and greater levels of entropy.

Entropy is a statistical phenomenon and is not lessened by concentration by gravitational attraction anyway. For instance, black holes have entropy measurable by the size of their event horizons and their entropy increases as they swallow more matter. If dark energy vanished (it might itself be above the ground state for the vacuum), gravity would take over, and the entropy of the universe would increase as it contracts and the gravitational potential energy is converted to less ordered kinetic energy.

[Enforcer Talen]

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html

[Specialist]

There are two theories. The first is just that every galaxy drifts apart. So about 15-20 billion years from now, we will be beyond any possible contact with any other galaxy. Of course, by that point the sun and the earth won't be around any more, but that's not the point. Things would then just keep drifting until all the stars burned out and everything was just a bunch of dead, sparse matter floating in a void.

I was watching discovery a few days ago, it's theory about this topic is all matter (galaxies) are converging on a single point. A massive black hole. Also on the way to that point billions of galaxies are colliding with each other. ie. the milky way galaxy will smash into the andremada galaxy a few million/billion years from now sending over 100 billion stars to drift. The core of the two galaxies (black holes) form a bigger singularity as they approach the "point". Also the new galaxy that will form would resemble a sphere instead of the swirling disc shape we have today. Even the massive black hole would also die after 10^100 years.

[Durandal]

We've been over this in many, many other threads, the vast majority of which were started by you, Shrykull. Stop posting rehashes of old threads just because you're bored.