The Night Before Christmas 1776
Posted on 12/22/2002 6:07:08 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Space might end up dark, thick and boring.
The Universe is not as bouncy as some think, say two physicists. If a Big Crunch follows the Big Bang, it may get stuck that way for ever1.
A fluid of black holes would bung up space. There would be nothing to drive another Big Bang, and nowhere else to go. The Universe would be, you might say, stuffed.
In a bouncing universe, all the matter currently flying apart slows until it reverses and falls towards a Big Crunch. Some physicists think this could ignite another Big Bang, in an unending sequence of expansion and contraction.
An idea called M-theory suggests how the switch from crunch to bang could happen2. The details depend on the shape of space: whether it is infinite and flat, or finite and curved like the surface of a balloon or a doughnut.
Thomas Banks of Rutgers University, New Jersey, and Willy Fischler of the University of Texas at Austin have considered a flat, infinite space in which particles get ever closer and ever denser.
In a space with such features, the smallest kinks in density are amplified into black holes, the densest objects in the Universe. So the whole of space-time would congeal into a very lumpy soup - a black crunch.
"We don't really know what this fluid is made out of," Fischler admits. But he and Banks argue that it may reach a pressure at which it cannot become any denser. At this point, the speed of sound equals the speed of light. Deadlock results.
No theory can cope with a Big Crunch. Because of this, says Fischler, the analysis that he and Banks have performed remains speculative. And a doughnut-shaped Universe could meet a quite different fate, he adds.
References:
1. Banks, T. & Fishler, W. Black Crunch. Preprint http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/0212113, (2002). |Article|
2. Khoury, J., Ovrut, B. A., Seiberg, N., Steinhardt, P. J. & Turok, N. From Big Crunch to Big Bang. Preprint http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/0108187, (2002). |Article|
[See the original article for links in the footnotes]
Yes. MacDorcha, this is God. Stop trying to shout down the scientists. I did it MY way ...LOL. Another year of interesting reading on the net concludes.
That is all.
And I can tell you he's terribly cute, too! ;-)
Hmmm . . . Okay, that's it . . . You know what? . . . I suddenly don't care if you go to college, study hard, or work in a car wash the rest of your life. You are one dumb, pridefully ignorant, boorish little skunk.
Oh no, not like Maxine Waters, John Lewis and Shirley Jackson Lee I hope.
Well said!
Oh dear! Looks like your job may just be in jeopardy if the Wunderkind is ever recognized for his mental prowess, Physicist.< /sarcasm>
ROFLMAO, sorry couldn't resist.
Which reminds me, Merry Christmas, formaldehyde-queen
Or, conversely, for the people most capable of understanding the subject.
The scary thing is that many kids his age feel the same way...and they will be the "leaders" of tomorrow. Parents and public school teachers have filled their heads with so much feel-good-about-yourself fluff without the real substance of education.
Yep, I used to tutor kids in math to help them get ready for their SATs. A lot of them had had algebra in high school but weren't familiar with the commutative, associative and distributive laws. Consequently, they couldn't solve the simplest of problems. And many didn't want to learn, either.
They told me that they had been taught from the first grade onward that there were no right or wrong answers, and that everybody's approach to problem solving was equally valid. So why learn some stupid "laws?"
It's pitiful.
If only the walls of that control room could talk!
The Night Before Christmas 1776
Oooo! Ooooo! CAT FIGHT!
Somebody get some popcorn; this should be good.....
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