Does the universe go on and on and on and on? If so, how? And if it stops, what stops it?
Thanks, bimjob!
Theories have changed over the years, but the latest almost-consensus is that the universe is expanding like a big balloon, with all points getting further away from each other. And that won't be able to continue forever - so END.
In addition comes the theory that the universe itself keeps undergoing these expanding phases, which are followed by contracting, then expanding, then contracting--- infinitely.
Interestingly (well, I think it's interesting) ancient Hindu philsophy teaches much the same. But - as bimjob points out - the time persepctives are immense. Nothing is likely to happen in your lifetime, or in the lifetimes of your great-great-great etc. grandchildren.
Present thought is that the universe will continue to expand indefinitely, and eventually the distance between stars will be so great that NO interaction will occur. Eventually all stars will run out of fuel. And eventually even the massive Black Holes will evaporate. (Yes, evaporate. They leak small amounts of energy called Hawking Radiation.) Of course this is so far into the future that our own solar system will have been gone for hundreds of billions of years. The Earth's demise will probably be in several billion years when Sol (our sun) becomes a Red Giant.
I recently seen a program that uses the game space invaders as an example of the shape of the universe when you go up thruogh the top you come back up through the bottom when you go through the right side you come back through the left ect it then went on explain that in order for this to happen then the universe would be donut shaped I think it was on bbc 2 with alan davies from qi it was realy intresting if you can find it check it out
It really trips me out that the only 2 infinite things are space and time. they can never me stopped/destroyed or created
weird huh? its just trippy to think its always been here,..no beginning and no end. ahh!
they say the universe is infinite. I like the mystery and wonders of astronomy! I'm sure a super massive black hole could stop it or some mega giagantic star blowing up or something. I don't know
I'd say probably heat death but there are all kinds of possibilities. This wikipedia article is fun to read sometimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fateofthe_universe
unfortunantly thats a question that no one in our planet knows the answer to
Only God knows.
Very true.
