The end of the world as we know it

[eridani]

But con't cancel your weekend plans just yet--

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25807/?ref=rss

There is a 50 per cent chance that time will end within the next 3.7 billion years, according to a new model of the universe .

Look out into space and the signs are plain to see. The universe began in a Big Bang event some 13 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. And the best evidence from the distance reaches of the cosmos is that this expansion is accelerating.

That has an important but unavoidable consequence: it means the universe will expand forever. And a universe that expands forever is infinite and eternal.

Today, a group of physicists rebel against this idea. They say an infinitely expanding universe cannot be so because the laws of physics do not work in an infinite cosmos. For these laws to make any sense, the universe must end, say Raphael Bousso at the University of California, Berkeley and few pals. And they have calculated when that is most likely to happen.

Their argument is deceptively simple and surprisingly powerful. Here's how it goes. If the universe lasts forever, then any event that can happen, will happen, no matter how unlikely. In fact, this event will happen an infinite number of times.

[Drale]

1. The thing is

we can only see as far as 13 billion light years out, so who knows whats past that there could be other universes or something completely different, man space is so cool lol.

[alphafemale]

2. your thread title made me chuckle and mutter..."again?"

I think in the past year on DU, the end of life as we know it has been imminent about 83 times.

:hi:

[meeshrox]

3. Didn't Hawking decide years ago that the universe was infinite?

At least Michio Kaku...can't remember which one I heard this from...

There are an infinite number of universes with infinite iterations of events. Just think, your wildest dreams are true in some other universe!

Something in your post doesn't make sense...did the pals at Berkeley come up with a finite or infinite universe? They don't explain how the universe will "end"...the big crunch comes to mind...weird.

[drm604]

4. I don't buy their argument.

If you read the article, their argument is that the laws of the universe won't work in an infinite unviverse because any event that can happen will eventually happen an infinite number of times making it impossible to determine the relative probabilities of different events. This would mean that the concept of "laws of physics" becomes meaningless and there are no physical laws.

This strikes me as just silly. Just because all possible events would eventually occur an infinite amount of times, that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have relative probabilities within any given finite stretch of space and time.

[xchrom]

5. Meh. I won't be around - so what do I care? Nt

[gtar100]

9. Arguably false. Everything that is you will be around.

Maybe scattered into entirely separate particles but if you say you won't be around, then you are saying that you know of an escape route out of the universe. But we don't know of any just yet. Only changes, transformations, disintigrations and integrations. So everything that radiates *you*, actions, thoughts, words, intentions, aspirations, fears, hopes, dreams, nightmares, and every whimsical thought contained within this universe...transformed into god knows what, dormant for epochs but unmistakably you to the astute galactic investigator well versed in the finest details of forensics.

[laurel46]

6. Not so fast,

As the universe expands it also cools and slows down. Less and less happens. (This is all really very speculative and the physicists are having a little fun is my guesss.)

[tularetom]

7. I haven't had enough to drink tonight to understand this post

It just sounds to me like the scene from Animal House where Pinto gets high for the first time and they talk about the universe being a speck on the fingernail of some giant in another larger universe.

I'll read it again after I have a couple more beers.

[Ozymanithrax]

8. Something outside the universe, or out of sight...

Something massive, is affecting matter in the universe.

New Proof Unknown "Structures" Tug at Our Universe

The Universe is stranger than we can imagine.

I won't hold my breath waiting for the universe to end.

[sakabatou]

10. And I feel fine

[txlibdem]

12. R. E. M.

"R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"
... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmxyj6iInMc&ob=av3n

[hootinholler]

11. They have discovered the foundations of the

Improbability Drive.

-Hoot

[laconicsax]

13. I'm not sure I follow their argument...

It seems they're arguing that if the universe is eternal and infinite, someone somewhere will add 2+2 and get 3,811,997.34 and someone somewhere else will determine that force is the sum of mass and acceleration, so the universe must be finite.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense...did I read it wrong?