Future Of An Expanding Universe
Observations suggest that the expansion of the universe will continue forever. If so, the universe will cool as it expands, eventually becoming too cold to sustain life. For this reason, this future scenario is popularly called the Big Freeze.
If dark energy—represented by the cosmological constant, a constant energy density filling space homogeneously, or scalar fields, such as quintessence or moduli, dynamic quantities whose energy density can vary in time and space—accelerates the expansion of the universe, the space between clusters of galaxies will grow at an increasing rate. Redshift will have stretched ancient, incoming photons (even gamma rays) to undetectably long wavelengths and low energies. Stars are expected to form normally for 1×1012 to 1×1014 years, but eventually the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted. And as existing stars ran out of fuel and ceased shining, the universe would slowly and inexorably grow darker, one star at a time. §IID, According to theories that predict proton decay, the stellar remnants left behind would disappear, leaving behind only black holes which themselves eventually disappear as they emit Hawking radiation. Ultimately, if the universe reaches a state in which the temperature approaches a uniform value, no further work will be possible, resulting in a final heat death of the universe.
Read more about Future Of An Expanding Universe: Cosmology, Future History, Timeline, Future Without Proton Decay, Graphical Timeline
Famous quotes containing the words expanding universe, future, expanding and/or universe:
“In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking! How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end.”
—Abigail Adams (1744–1818)
“In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)