[Moonman62]

I've read -- this is 2nd hand only -- that back in the 1930s, someone named Tolman showed that entropy increase was inevitable for a continuously oscillating universe. The reason I'm dubious is that I don't know where the "lost" energy/information would go. It's all got to be preserved in a crunch for yet another performance of the cosmic show. Or so it seems to me.

Energy doesn't get lost or go anywhere outside our universe. It simply gets redistributed very evenly, so that work becomes impossible.

[MacDorcha]

"Energy doesn't get lost or go anywhere outside our universe. It simply gets redistributed very evenly, so that work becomes impossible. "

in such a case, is it safe to say that the universe would simply cease at some point? no expand, contract, up or down. no vibration at all? how would we know when we reached that state? as eternity would pass without our knwing... could we be jumpstarted by another event shedding energy into our existance? and we would start again, without having known we stopped? could this have happened already? hmm.... im not going to get sleep tonight.....