The "end" of the universe

[K3ny0n]

I've heard people on TV and lectures say the phrase "at the end of the universe".. Are they stating the end of the universes life or the "physical" end of the universe (a barrier)

Is there an end to the universe?

Surely it can't go on forever?

If there is an end to the universe, what does it consist of?

Is it a physical barrier?

Mind boggling stuff, not expecting anyone to reply but would love to know your questions which absolutely make your brain spin.

Rob

[themos]

There's two "ends". In space terms, it means the edge of the observable universe. As the universe seems to have a finite age, we can only see as far as light has taken to reach us. There's more stuff that we haven't seen yet (and may never see but that's another story).

In time terms, it means the death of the universe and that is more speculation than science as the applicable physics is largely mysterious.

[AustinStargazer]

Is there an end to the universe? Well that's a hard question because no one simply knows and my brain hurts thinking about it, but I've read somewhere that the universe is constantly expanding since the big bang due to some dark energy of some sort pushing it all away ( apparently ) but I personally think that this should be split up into two sections of what we can observe and what we can't obvserve and to me that's the end of our universe due to technology. But we've only had the technology to observe as far as we can for the last 60 years.

I'm more of a visual person so as I think this the more my brain tries to draw it resulting In head strain. But I don't think there is an end to it.

[Earl]

The end of the universe can refer to the Thermal Death of the universe where everything is at absolute zero, this is one current theory.

As the end been an edge so to speak it all gets a little hard to comprehend as we live in a world where we are defined by boundaries, starts and finishes, alive and dead, all very black and white the universe goes beyond that concept.

The recent Horizon program dealing with before the big bang covers a lot of concepts on the nature of the universe and was the big bang the start, its worth a watch if you can.

[RobH]

As far as a physical end to the universe....in other words, you keep going and get to the edge type of end, there isn't one.

All of space and time came into being with the big bang (that's what we think at the moment anyway) so there isn't anything else but the universe in that sense.

You won't fall off the edge if you travel far enough

[gregpowell]

According to the theory of "inflation" there is evidence to support this... THe big bang was the result of the "false vacuum" collapsing to a lower energy state i.e (to a more stable state, which is called the true vacuum ). All of this energy was dumped into ( what was to become ) our universe in the form of particles. Quantum processes ensured that matter wasn't evenly distributed and this eventually clumped into galaxies .

But during the process of collapse, a huge expansion took place, and what we see of our light horizon is just a tiny part of the whole. the false vacuum has collapsed in our locality, but it is a continual process that is eternal.

Our part of the Universe is merely a small grain of sand on infinte beach.... All the other grains are universes also. Some like our own, but most completely different. This collective is usually called the muliverse ... It's a big place.

greg

[Ptarmigan]

I've heard people on TV and lectures say the phrase "at the end of the universe".. Are they stating the end of the universes life or the "physical" end of the universe (a barrier)

Is there an end to the universe?

Surely it can't go on forever?

If there is an end to the universe, what does it consist of?

Is it a physical barrier?

Mind boggling stuff, not expecting anyone to reply but would love to know your questions which absolutely make your brain spin.

Rob

Let alone what is meant by the "end", what is meant by the "universe" ?

Much is said about multiverses recently, here are some thoughts on the anthropic universe =

By Martin Rees | Response | 2012 Annual Question | Edge

[Williams]

Its nice to know the atoms in my body will be around forever, even tho they won't be in the correct order.. but if what we can see is here forever and quantum mechanics are correct, the chances of them coming together again in the future are slim, but possible haha!

[cowasaki]

There are a number of "end of universe" scenarios.

The big crunch - Where everything shrinks back and it then possibly explodes again in another big bang.

Another alternative is that as the universe stretches out then all matter will stretch out with it and at a point in the future all energy will be evened out as molecular energy with too large a distance between every particle for any interaction at which point the universe will be dead.

Then you could come up with other theories, however silly, such as all the black holes will continue to grow as galaxies collide and stars fall into them then black holes might merge and we might end up with one giant black hole - sorry just came up with that as an example

[assasincz]

I have heard that the present cosmological knowledge suggests that universe has in fact "closed geometry", i.e. if you were to shoot a laser beam into space and wait long enough, it will eventually hit you in the back of your head, evidence of which is to be found in CMB. I understand it that even though the universe appears to be finite in size, there is no "edge". That said, I struggle to get the hang of the concept though, and I have read that the resolution of dedicated missions such as Planck might still not be good enough to determine this conclusively from CMB.

Come to think of it, it is rather amgbiguous as to what you mean by "end of the universe". You mean "end" like an "edge" or "end" like the "end of days"?

If the second, I have heard of the concept of "energy death of the universe" - i.e. a lot of material would be swallowed by black holes, there will be occasional black dwarfs zipping around and the universe will be so stretched out, that all the energy in forms of photons would be so red shifted, that it would be practically undetectable.

[JulianO]

I have heard that the present cosmological knowledge suggests that universe has in fact "closed geometry", i.e. if you were to shoot a laser beam into space and wait long enough, it will eventually hit you in the back of your head, evidence of which is to be found in CMB.

No - currently the universe is believed to be flat, to within a very good approximation (flat being 0, it is measured to be at most 0.008 but that's to the limit of measurability). So, if it's curved in either direction, it is a very very small curve.

[phat tony]

hi, all fun theories but just that theories. we can not know for sure but the way i see it is that where not being pushed out, i believe that we are being sucked out into a total vacuum and i don't believe there will ever be an end to both. no end of days implosion and no border to our universe. i also believe that we could be one universe in billions and we are separated by large empty space or vacuums, picture our universe being like land on earth and the water being the empty vacuums. anyone agree???

[cowasaki]

Again another reasonable theory. The universe is still young though so any of them could be true

[assasincz]

Anyway, what I really like about current cosmology is the fact that (last time I checked) the observable universe accounts for mere 4% of total universe, and that's just cool