The Universe

[Njd1990]

Do I win a medal for the most broad topic name ever? Well, I was just watching a movie (K-PAX) If anyone is wondering, and it was mentioned in the story that the universe will expand, collapse, expand...thus bringing it to the point where we repeat everything over...(Sorry if this is making little to no sense, it's late and I'm tired.) So, am I crazy for thinking this is highly probable if not actually happening? That "time" simply repeats itself infinitely? Looking forward to see what you guys think.

[Schmaven]

I think it may recreate itself, but I think there would be differences if that were the case. Time would repeat itself infinitely, but events would unfold differently. Otherwise I don't see the point.

[DNK]

Repeating? Probably not. I'd imagine it's either completely random each time or is based on the state of the previous universe upon collapse. But it could also repeat exactly the same each time, but then one has to wonder why the current universe seems so random and how that randomness could be exact, if you get what I'm saying.

[Schmaven]

Maybe with each repeat of the universe, it improves upon its previous existence somehow. For it to be exactly the same each time... I think it is way too random for this to be it. Or maybe we're just not at the impressive part of existence yet, and we're just unfolding towards that part over and over again.

[Xei]

Do I win a medal for the most broad topic name ever? That depends if you believe in a multiverse. Anyway, that's not how it's going to happen. We can calculate the expansion of the universe quite accurately, and its mass would have to be at least 100 times what it is now for a collapse to occur. What will happen instead is that the universe will expand and fizzle out. However, there's nothing to say that there aren't universes constantly being born. I hold this belief at the moment; it's a very elegant explanation for life when you combine it with the anthropic principle.

[DNK]

Wait, since when is the universe 100 times less dense than it needs to be to crunch? I was under the impression the universe was just on the cusp of being too massive and too empty, but was leaning ever so slightly to the empty side. Maybe my physics is off, but 100x doesn't seem very cusplike to me. I also thought about the perpetual progress universe. I like that idea. Maybe it's not that the universe itself progresses, but by some mechanism in the universe a new universe can be born with progressive laws/etc.

[Schmaven]

I think it would be really cool if there were many universes, and each universe is doing its own things, expanding and whatnot. And each universe is made up of consciousness that is everything in the universe subjectively witnessing itself exist. Then what if the universe does fizzle out or somehow destroy itself. This could be the beginning of another stage of that consciousness.

[Xei]

Wait, since when is the universe 100 times less dense than it needs to be to crunch? I was under the impression the universe was just on the cusp of being too massive and too empty, but was leaning ever so slightly to the empty side. Maybe my physics is off, but 100x doesn't seem very cusplike to me. Well, that's what it says in a Brief History of Time at least.

[JET73L]

That depends if you believe in a multiverse. Anyway, that's not how it's going to happen. We can calculate the expansion of the universe quite accurately, and its mass would have to be at least 100 times what it is now for a collapse to occur. What will happen instead is that the universe will expand and fizzle out. However, there's nothing to say that there aren't universes constantly being born. I hold this belief at the moment; it's a very elegant explanation for life when you combine it with the anthropic principle. This is under the assumption that there is nothing outside the universe to increase "pressure" (the gravity:mass ratio). We know nothing about what ius outsidee the universe, if anything, and if there is, then how it interacts with our own. We can only theorize. So there are many reasons this could be true. Just as there could be many reasons why this would not be true. (PS: Stephen Hawking is interesting, if a bit dry.)

[DNK]

Well, that's what it says in a Brief History of Time at least. What page? I got mine from a SciAm article a few years back, I think. Hard to really remember the source, though.