[Joe Brower]

According to the physics we currently understand, all that exists is drifting ever farther apart, eventually out of sight of the rest of the universe from any vantage point. We don't yet know the reason for this; only that it is happening.

In time, the universe entire will eventually experience a state of 'heat death' where no chemical reactions can occur. An act of destruction so complete that even the act itself will not be remembered, to quote the late Heinz Pagels.

Seeing as all of this is many billions of years from now, I'm not worrying about it much. $;-)

[Red Badger]

I don’t agree that the universe will die a cold death.

If Einstein’s picture of Space-Time is correct, that it is like a rubber sheet with mass depressing it [gravity wells] in all it’s different forms and locations, then even if there were only two black holes left and they were trillions of light years apart, they would eventually collide............

[devane617]

A slight wobble or orbit deviation of any of our neighboring planets will be all it takes to doom Earth. A universe that collapses back is not the worry. Move the balance of gravity slightly and its over.