The Big Rip 44
WolfWithoutAClause writes "It's been known for decades that the universe is expanding. The current evidence points to this rate of expansion increasing, and if so, there's no obvious reason why the expansion rate couldn't continue to increase ever faster. A physicist, Simon Caldwell, has taken this to inevitable conclusion and suggested the expansion will eventually reach a point where the expansion rate is so high that any surviving people will ripped apart, followed a millisecond later by the destruction of all the atoms in the universe. Ouch.
New Scientist says we may only have 22 billion years left. Almost enough time for a quick game of Everquest then."
And then the lawsuit will come... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like it could be the target for a RIAA/DCMA lawsuit! "Your honor, we would like to sue the universe for clearly premeditated copyright violation."
Patents to the rescue (Score:1)
And if the universe uses the patent without permission, sue the universe!
1. Patent the Process of Universal Destruction
2. ???
3. Profit!
Where "???" reperesents total destruction of everything.
Don't Panic! (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that as a scientific line of inquiry it is interesting, it is nothing more at this point than another pet theory based on abservations made of a (very) limited part of the universe, so I take it like all such with a grain of salt.
Re:Don't Panic! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, a large one; and getting larger all the time ;-)
Re:Don't Panic! (Score:2, Funny)
I know this is a redundent post as infinite other versions of me have already posted this on infinite other
Hmm... (Score:1, Funny)
My Results (Score:5, Funny)
My experiments in expansion have proven that somewhere around a 44-46 waist the expansion rate is so high, you better start looking for a big-and-tall men's shop or any surviving jeans will be ripped apart, followed a millisecond later by the purchasing of sweatpants.
Don't let this happen to your universe.
Shot in the dark (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish they would wait at least long enough to get some decent information on new discoveries before twisting them into imaginary shapes and trying hard to get recognized.
Re:Shot in the dark (Score:2)
Typically physicists follow a "if the equation predicts obsesrvation, it must be correct" point of view. So if they randomly plug together numbers and variables, and it seems to describe how things work, then it's at least 'probably' true.
Re:Shot in the dark (Score:3, Interesting)
However, making prediction what happens outside those bounds is _extrapolation_, and almost all extrapolation is wrong.
Newtonian laws of motion? Extrapolate to high velocities, and you incorrectly predict the orbit of mercury. (Add SR to fix.)
Classical models of black body radiation? Extrapolate to very short wavelengths, and you get the ultraviolet catastrophe. (Add Planck to fix).
However, all these fixes still have _their_ bounds, and you can't use NM+SR to predict behaviour of particles small-enough to have wavelike behaviour.
Extrapolation is what you do when you desperately need more funding...
YAW.
Re:Shot in the dark (Score:2)
Re:Shot in the dark (Score:1)
Just another theory? (Score:1)
New Scientist (Score:2)
Does this mean that at some point black holes will start regurtitating matter?
Re:New Scientist (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New Scientist (Score:3, Informative)
That's the way I understand but I may be an idiot.
Re:New Scientist (Score:2)
Shrinking (Score:1)
but if I predict... (Score:1)
that the universe is going to do something blatantly ridiculus they say that my simulation is wrong or that I dropped a minus sign or that it's just not worth considering.
After all *their* simulation must be right and they *haven't* dropped any minus signs and they certanly have all the information they need to make radical but perfectly justifiable claims like this.
Sure is good to know that ever since that whole flat earth thing they've always been right on.
Yay
</sarcasm>
The dangers of extrapolation (Score:5, Interesting)
To quote:
"Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."
-Peter
well... (Score:1)
Re:well... (Score:1)
Re:well... (Score:1)
(Yeah, yeah, they'd probably be centuries apart, and quite weak, I know, but I've seen the screensaver, and I want a ride!)
YAW
The Joy of Extrapolation (Score:4, Funny)
What did Master Caldwell think when he first started getting his first erection?
Sorry for being crude,
YAW.
What About the Angels?! (Score:1)
assume it is true... (Score:2)
Perhaps the resulting emptiness could then undergo another big bang and create yet another universe? Wouldn't that be neat.
Or not. I guess we'll never know!
Re:assume it is true... (Score:2)
It's kind of like the universe would consist of lots of fundamental particles like electrons, photons and so forth, individually being dragged apart by the expanding space; so there's no way they could ever meet.
Perhaps the resulting emptiness could then undergo another big bang and create yet another universe? Wouldn't that be neat.
Yeah, that's probably possible, or atleast there are theorists that claim that this may already happen; in blackholes for example.
Or not. I guess we'll never know!
Maybe we can tell, by studying the universe closely enough we may be able to work out the rules, and if the rules allow subuniverses we may be able to experimentally show it happening.
Phantom Energy and Wormholes (Score:2)
Re:Phantom Energy and Wormholes (Score:1)
you came back in time from the future and killed yourself in the middle of that sentence didn't you!?
soooo... (Score:2)
Tiny worm holes (Score:2)
Most physicists probably will not be rooting for phantom energy. That is because if it exists, it will cause them all kinds of theoretical headaches. For example, Einstein's theory of gravity predicts the existence of minuscule wormholes - short cuts through space-time.
Normally they snap shut so fast we never notice them. But phantom energy's repulsive gravity would be powerful enough to hold wormholes open, and perhaps even push them wide enough apart for spacecraft to use them for faster-than-light travel. "This raises the spectre of time machines and all their paradoxes, which physicists find very uncomfortable," says Caldwell.
Ahhh, problem solved... If the wormholes are big enough to fly stuff through, then we can just grab as much matter as we can find, fling it all together towards an arbitratily chosen "center point" to the universe, and rely on good old gravity to hold it together. If we just keep grabing and hurling the matter of the universe back onto itself just a little bit faster than it can expand away from itself, we can keep the old gal together indefinitly.
The actual journal article (Score:2, Interesting)
I also wish to point out that extrapolation can be useful for precisely the reason many are criticizing it: it can reveal where current theories are wrong.
Universal expansion doesn't mean *we* expand! (Score:3, Informative)
Shame on New Scientist.
And now the above, with (a little) math. The gravitational force between two objects is basically (leaving out mass)
F = -k / r^2 + L * r
where k is a constant, r is the separation between the 2 objs, and L is either a constant or a function of time (we don't know yet).
The k term is good old Newtonian (or even Einsteinian up until a couple of years ago) gravity. Strong for small r, weak for low r.
The L term represents the new discovery that the universal expansion is accelerating. It is (unnoticeably) weak on small scales, and only important for large r (i.e. size of the visible universe). For the L term to matter on planetary scales, it would have to become much larger in the future. But we just discovered that it even exists - how it behaves with time is the next thing to find. So don't worry (yet ;-).
Re:Universal expansion doesn't mean *we* expand! (Score:2)
Uh. No.
As the expansion rate increases, the size of the observable universe shrinks i.e. the point of the universe that is moving away faster than the speed of light comes ever closer.
Once the Sun 'falls' over that edge- you are no longer gravitationally bound to the Sun.
Finally the 'observable' universe is smaller than a nucleus; then it's game over.
Re:Universal expansion doesn't mean *we* expand! (Score:1)
Once the Sun 'falls' over that edge- you are no longer gravitationally bound to the Sun.
You missed the point. The Solar system isn't expanding. Galaxies are like the raisins in a baking loaf of raisin bread. As the bread rises the raisins move farther apart, but the raisins (and their contents) stay more or less the same size.
What you said about shrinking horizons in an accelerating universe is correct - as long as the universe on the horizon scale is well described by the Friedmann equations. But the Friedmann equations assume a homogeneous universe for mathematical convenience, so not all of their predictions apply everywhere in the real universe.
Re:Universal expansion doesn't mean *we* expand! (Score:2)
Bzzt. Wrong. If the expansion is accelerating, then the solar system is expanding.
It's only doing it slowly, but an accelerating universe is injecting energy into the planets- they are gradually moving into larger and larger orbits.
A constant expansion doesn't do that; the planets end up just a bit nearer to the sun for the same speed than than they would be if the expansion wasn't there; but if the expansion rate keeps increasing, they continually spiral out. Eventually they will individually reach escape velocity and be lost.
But the Friedmann equations assume a homogeneous universe for mathematical convenience, so not all of their predictions apply everywhere in the real universe.
Doubtless true; all equations have limits to their applicability. It seems very unlikely that that would be enough though.
If the rate continues to accelerate, the universe is really screwed. It may slow down again I suppose; the expansion is not well understood.
Re:Universal expansion doesn't mean *we* expand! (Score:1)
Exactly where are you getting this from?
>But the Friedmann equations assume a
>homogeneous universe for mathematical
>convenience, so not all of their predictions
>apply everywhere in the real universe.
Doubtless true; all equations have limits to their applicability. It seems very unlikely that that would be enough though.
?!?! You know how they say space is a vacuum? They're talking about within the solar sy
Re:Universal expansion doesn't mean *we* expand! (Score:2)
I agree completely. All that happens as the expansion accelerates is the line between 'large scale' and smaller moves. Eventually, the line is smaller than molecules, and then no more chemical reactions will occur.
Dude, it should be split. (Score:1)
Unlikey (Score:1)
Umm, ok..on that same note, my ass is the source of all knowledge.