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Escaping the big crunch

 If it were to end that way
  (+5, -10)(+5, -10)
(+5, -10) 		  [vote for,
against]

As far as I am aware, either the universe ends in a big crunch, or thermal death.
If it were to end in a big crunch, then it might be possible to ride in a spacecraft, far, far away from the crunch.
Of course, I assume that our descendants have developed unbelievably in technology, and form compared to now. Perhaps they could even program a VCR by then.
After the big crunch, they would need to wait a few billion years to see what happens next.
—Ling, Mar 18 2005

'Tau Zero' by Paoul Anderson http://www.amazon.c...104-7342486-6801534
The crew of a spaceship watch the universe grow old and die. [DrBob, Mar 19 2005]

One way to escape it... http://en.wikipedia...End_of_the_Universe
Just go back in time, silly. Assuming time behaves predictably towards the gnab gib. [RayfordSteele, Mar 19 2005]

More than one universe. http://www.pbs.org/...wking/html/ask.html
Cilck on "read answers", scroll down a little and read the answers. It speaks of more than one big bang, of big bangs happening all the time! [zeno, Mar 19 2005]

Evidence for String Theory http://www.rednova....erything/index.html
Galaxy CSL-1 [JakePatterson, Mar 20 2005]

There's a limit to how far you can go in an expanding universe http://www.sciam.co...13-852383414B7F0147
[ldischler, Mar 24 2005]

[link]






       Escaping the gravity of the situation might be a bit tough
—theircompetitor, Mar 18 2005
   

       My understanding is that there's nowhere to go when the big crunch happens. It's not just the objects in space that are going to crunch, but rather the whole soup of space itself, along with all the croutons therein. Hence, we're going to have to find another dimension to pop into.   

       *HOW*ever - I could be utterly wrong here (it has been known to be the case in the past).   

       Incidentally, it is believed that, as the entire universe becomes a singularity again, all buttons on all VCRs will start to behave in a quantum manner, and hence all possible programmes will be recorded.
—Basepair, Mar 18 2005
   

       Far, far away gets sucked up in the big crunch, too. You'd have to slide one universe over to avoid the termination of this one. By this time this comes around though, one would be so bored, why bother escaping the inevitable?   

       Even sliding between universes won't allow you escape from the supercrunch, of course.
—Soterios, Mar 18 2005
   

       So, that's three opinions that the big crunch is inescapable.
Well, someone's got to worry about these things. We can't have everyone running around, escaping from the expanding Sun, hopping from Solar system to Galaxies and so on.
And what for?
To be sucked into a huge black hole, fingernails scratching through the fabric of space-time, singing "Always look on the bright side of life".
—Ling, Mar 18 2005
   

       Wow, I have been thinking about this for years!   

       At the gnab gib, space would be highly distorted yes, but not all space. There is evidence of other universes, stemming from other big bangs as it were. Going there and escaping the gnab gib gives me food for dreams with no end.   

       Why do you think afterwards it would take a few billion years to see what happens next? I think it might be instantanious. Big +
—zeno, Mar 18 2005
   

       To escape the gravity, the distance would be huge. It would take that long for the light from any subsequent big bang to get to you.
(Assuming the big crunch changes to a big bang).
I wonder if it has all happened before.
—Ling, Mar 18 2005
   

       [Ling], you might find Edgar Allen Poe's Eureka interesting reading material. It is not a story like he usually writes but a scientific essay desrcibing and explaining the nature of the universe. Though perhaps partly outdated at the moment, it was ahead of the times when published. He writes very beautifully about the big bang and gnab gib as repetitions.
—zeno, Mar 18 2005
   

       Hmmm. And how would all mini-mes and yous and everyone elses realise that the universe is about to end? Go to the edge of the universe? The universe is meant to be expanding all the time, but where into if it doesn't already exist? And what would crunch it? A gigantic, universe x3 sized beartrap?   

       This is so halfbaked, so [+] from me!
—froglet, Mar 18 2005
   

       OK, so as the universe collapses, we orbit it.
The mass of the universe is approx 5.56x10^52Kg. If we orbit at a tenth of the speed of light, then we would need to have an orbital radius of 5x10^12 light years.
—Ling, Mar 19 2005
   

       But there's nowhere to orbit, as I understand it. The problem is not so much that all the stuff in the universe collapses, but that space itself collapses.   

       It's a bit like an ant trying to walk off the surface of a shrinking balloon, only with one more dimension and much more noise.   

       To be honest, I've never got my head around the fact that there's no "space" outside the universe either. But that's more of a problem with my head than with the universe as a whole.
—Basepair, Mar 19 2005
   

       I think that gravity will still be working (even a black holes gravity seems to escape the black hole).
I think that prior to the big crunch, everything might develop into a huge black hole. After that, who knows?

I also think that really empty space (no light, no gravity) will be impossible if there is an object nearby. My uninformed thinking enjoys the thought that objects make their own space.

<Side musing> If the big crunch ended with the universe at a singularity, and gravity from the singularity ceases to exist, then the lonely spaceship would have no reference. Would it continue to move? Undefined answer. No one could tell. Would inertia cease to exist?
—Ling, Mar 19 2005
   

       The whole question of 'relative inertia' puzzles me (but so do many many things). Along similar lines is Mach's problem - if an object were spinning in an otherwise empty universe, would it 'know' it were spinning, and therefore would it experience centrifugal (or centripetal or whatever) forces?   

       There was a thought experiment along similar lines: if you spin a bowl of water on a turntable, its surface will become concave due to centrifug[/pet]al effects. So, if you leave the bowl standing still but spin the universe around it, will the same thing happen?   

       (looks over shoulder and finds that he has wandered far, far from the actual topic....)
—Basepair, Mar 19 2005
   

       The presently most accepted theory states that our universe started of with the big bang. BUT, it does NOT say that our universe is the only one. The big bang is not the cause of all space and time, it is just the cause of our little patch we call the universe. OUTSIDE our universe there are others. I'm not talking of different dimensions or different kinds of space. Just normal ordinary different universes, they are just far away.
—zeno, Mar 19 2005
   

       If space itself expands while its contents expand, does that help short-circuit the heat death?
—RayfordSteele, Mar 19 2005
   

       [Zeno] I'm spectacularly out of my depth here. But, what is between the universes? As I understood things, there's no such thing as 'space' beyond (or between) the universe(s) - space is an integral property of the universe(s). So, what is one crossing in going between universes?   

       And, if one could travel continuously through space between two universes, in what sense are they different universes?   

       I think that, by definition, it's impossible to travel through regular space to a different universe (just as, by definition, you can't walk on land from one island to another).   

       Is there a cosmologist in the house?
—Basepair, Mar 19 2005
   

       // by definition, you can't walk on land from one island to another//   

       Well sure you can, with a large enough air tank and a weight belt.   

       My skewed understanding is thus: String Theory holds that the universe is an 11-brane (or an 11 dimensional lump of space) floating about with many other n- branes. Only 3 of the 11 spacial dimensions are normally observable, because the others are all "really small" or something. The Big Bang may have been the result of our 11-brane coliding with another n-brane, causing all the strings to start vibrating or some such, and vibriting strings are the building blocks for quarks, quarks are the building blocks for protons and neutrons, and so on. The "inflation" of the universe isn't simply matter moving apart due to momentum from the Big Bang, but rather the three spacial dimensions that we observe day to day are getting bigger, causing objects that are not bound to each other by one of the four fundimental forces to... not so much move as to... find themselves farther apart from each other. Eventually we will not be able to observe galaxies that are not gravitationally bound to our own, because we will nolonger be within their space time light cone. There will never be a Big Crunch (or Gnab Gib) because the inflationary force seems to be stronger than gravity at the truely cosmic distances involved.
—JakePatterson, Mar 19 2005
   

       [2-fries] indeed. Which would be a sort of transdimensional spaceshippy thing.   

       JakeP - so, "the three spacial dimensions that we observe day to day are getting bigger", so, if there were a big crunch, it's space that would collapse rather than just the matter in it, and hence we wouldn't be able to step outside and watch from a comfortable distance. (?).   

       However, if the universe is indeed expanding ever-faster rather than ever- slower, then I guess we don't have to worry about this. And if Einstein were alive today he'd be spinning in his grave...
—Basepair, Mar 19 2005
   

       I think there is a misunderstanding here that might be on my side. I think it is a language thing. I'm not a cosmologist. Let's start from basics:   

       We live in our solarsystem. It is part of the Milky Way, a starsytem or galaxy, made out of countless solar systems. What I called the universe is made out of countless galaxies. This galaxy-system, if you will, originated with the big bang.   

       I, as a non english person, think that the word universe is used to describe everything in existence. The whole shabam. The complete and utter infinite reaches of space and time.   

       That is not the meaning I intended. There are galaxies that did not originate from our big bang, so I said there are are other universes.   

       In my language we use these words: zonnestelsel, solar system. Sterrenstelsel, Star system or galaxy. Universum, system of galaxies. Heelal, everything.   

       I mean, ours is not the only big bang, and between it and others there is lots and lots of space. <attempting google search will edit later>
—zeno, Mar 19 2005
   

       how many big bangs do you want, zeno?
—po, Mar 19 2005
   

       Found nice link, check it out!   

       [Po], How many have you got?
—zeno, Mar 19 2005
   

       enough, big boy!
—po, Mar 19 2005
   

       Yeah
—zeno, Mar 19 2005
   

       Zeno - there may well be lots of universes, but the stuff between them will not be space. Space only exists within the (or a) universe. It's like a fish in a pond saying "outside our pond, there must be other ponds, with nothing but water between them".
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       [ian tindale], infinity is getting smaller.   

       [Basepair], space, is it nothingness? Or does it have properties? What is it in relation to time and matter? I know little of these things. I do suggest however that we need not the eleven dimensions to think about other big bangs, they just occur inside our "normal" time-space. Lets assume you have a spaceship that can travel at billions of times the speed of light. You would be able to fly there. Yet you would never be able to fly to the eleventh dimension in that way. (leaving aside for the moment the discussion of faster than light travel and what these speeds (billion times the speed of light, I mean come on, get real) would do do time and space and dimensions etc. and the perception thereof)
—zeno, Mar 20 2005
   

       [zeno] On the need for eleven dimensions, I don't know - way beyond me. But I understand that many of the current attempts to find a theory of everything require more than three dimensions (plus time), and I can't see any objection to them.   

       But as to "space, is it nothingness?" - well, not really. Space (and time) are where things happen, just as a pond is where things happen. The space outside the pond is not the same as the "empty" water in between the things in the pond. So the Big Bang was not just like a regular "three dimensional" explosion happenning in a previously empty space; it was an explosion that created space itself. Likewise, most cosmologists (ie, the small minority who've written books simple enough for me to half understand!) say that it makes no sense to ask what happenned before the big bang, since time started then also.   

       It's all very odd, and I for one cannot get my head around it in any intuitive way. But then again, quantum mechanics is also utterly non-intuitive, but it generally works well and makes correct predictions where classical physics cannot. I guess we are only equipped (by both evolution and individual experience) to "get" things that happen on the timescales and dimensions that we normally experience.
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       The 11 dimensions thing: basically, String Theory says that matter, on the scale of the constituants of quarks, is made of of little strings that are vibrating like violin strings. The kind of matter that you get, ie, the kind of particle, depends on how the string(s?) are vibrating. It turns out that you need 11 dimensions to have enough different ways a string can vibrate to account for all the different kinds of particles. If there were fewer than 11 dimensions, we would expect to see fewer kinds of particles, and if there were more than 11 dimensions, I guess we would expect to see more kinds of particles than we do.
—JakePatterson, Mar 20 2005
   

       Quite. On the other hand, I get the feeling that one of the reasons string theory looks so promising is that it makes no predictions (beyond those obervations which went into it in the first place) which are testable with our current physical and mathematical tools. Nothing against string theory, but I presume the jury is still out on it? (And whatever replaces it will surely be even wierder.)
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       It would certainly have to be replaced by 'braided rope theory.' It's much stronger and can hold more weight.   

       (Personally, I find string theory to be as the cosmologist's equivalent to 7-day creationism, unprovable and absurd).
—RayfordSteele, Mar 20 2005
   

       [Rayford] I half agree with your sentiment. On the other hand, it's not much more absurd than quantum theory or relativity. Plus, I think string- theorists are embarrassed at the lack of testable predictions and would love to put this right and make the theory testable. Creationists, on the other hand, have no intention of looking for an objective test of their idea.
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       I can understand that before the big bang, there was no space.
What does that mean? Well I think it means that there was no way to measure distance. Right now, we can measure distance by how long it takes light to go from one place to another. As long as we have light, or I suppose, gravity, then there must be space.
If there was a big crunch, why would all the light fall into the crunch? For that matter, if a spacecraft was orbiting the final singularity as I mentioned earlier, why would space disappear?
For example, away from a black-hole, space seems to be OK. Isn't the big crunch just a huge black-hole? If not, how is it any different?
I still hold the belief that a spaceship could orbit the big crunch. Maybe thermal death for them, big crunch or not.
If not, then our species is doomed.
I can imagine the last person saying "Eureka, I have found the reason for it all", as he is sucked into the final oblivion.
—Ling, Mar 20 2005
   

       <exerpt from my link, surprisingly what I tried to say does happen in hyperspace, so we do need multiple dimesions>   

       Similarly, the leading theory among cosmologists today is the multiverse theory, which states that quantum universes are constantly being created out of Nothing. Many of them are probably short-lived; they have a Big Bang, but then rapidly have a Big Crunch and disappear back into Nothing.   

       (This does not violate the conservation of matter and energy; the matter of the universe has positive energy, but the gravitational field has negative energy, such that the total energy for a closed universe is zero, so it takes zero energy to create a closed universe.)   

       This means that Big Bangs are probably happening all the time, with entire bubble/universes springing out of the vacuum
—zeno, Mar 20 2005
   

       [Ling] - All I can do is to relay what I've been assured of - namely, that the big bang involves the expansion of space itself, and that the big crunch likewise involves the contraction of space itself. I can't get my head around this either, but there you go. One vaguely-relevant fact: it's believed by many that if you point a spaceship in any direction and keep going in a dead straight line, you'll eventually wind up back where you started because space is finite (though growing) and curved. It's like an ant on the surface of a deflating balloon - he'll try to walk off to somewhere safe, but will never be able to do so. A truly two- dimensional ant on the surface of a shrinking three-dimensional balloon would probably find this as puzzling as we three-D humans do in a shrinking 4-(or more-)D universe.   

       Anyway, as I said, I can't get my head around it and can only take on trust what the cosmologists reckon, that the crunch is the reverse of the bang, and that it involves the collapse of space itself rather than just the stuff in it.
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       [Zeno] - I don't have any problem with multiple universes popping in and out of existence. But if they're connected to our universe by space, then I think by definition they are part of our universe. In other words, I think that by definition we can't go outside our universe (or into another one) through space. If we can invent something trans-dimensional or wormholey or whatever, then of course anything is allowed.
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       [Basepair] - It is true that String Theory has gone largely unsupported by observation, however there is a glimmer of hope on that front, I added a link an article about the observation that is theorized to be a double image of a galaxy caused by an cosmic superstring, which is predicted by ST.
—JakePatterson, Mar 20 2005
   

       [Jake] - thanks for the link - good stuff (though they seem to only have 10 dimensions; I thought it was meant to be 11?).   

       <irrelevant aside> I clicked to enlarge their image, expecting to see the "twin" galaxies. A stared at the point indicated by the little arrow for about 10 seconds before I realized that the little arrow was my cursor. D'oh of cosmic proportions.<irrelevant aside>
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       Yes [Basepair], I was trying to say just that, it's not regular space after all that seperates them, but hyperspace, multidimensional. I did not know this and later learnt it from reading my own link. I was wrong in earlier anno's.
—zeno, Mar 20 2005
   

       Ah - I see, many thanks. As a famous (and now very very old and therefore very very wise) philosopher, have you had any more luck than I have at getting your head around all this 'curved space' and multidimensional stuff? It worries me sometimes....
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       Don't eat the pi. It recurses on you.
—Basepair, Mar 20 2005
   

       [UB] How do you plan to get there? Hitch a lift?   

       No matter how adept you are at getting a lift off a stranger, I doubt that you'd be able to get a lift from the little green/blue/pointy-eared men. I thought they had something called the 'Prime Directive' that prevents them from interfering with anybeing.
—froglet, Mar 21 2005
   

       As some of you may recall, I posted something about a thing I saw on yahoo news, about some scientists who somehow discovered that the universe is infinite or what-not. I don't know what to believe, but assuming the universe has an 'edge' and this edge just teleports you back to the other, or opposite side of the universe, then what happens in the big crunch?   

       So... if the universe collapses, doesn't that cause all the matter and space inside to become closer and closer until they reach the center of the universe, and everthing bounces off itself? That would mean that one side of a planet would become the other side of the planet, things would be inside each other! Inside would be out! Planets would be virtually infinitely continuing objects! Everthing might turn into blck holes, because everything would cram together, breaking the phsysical barriers, forcing atoms into other atoms physical barriers! Everything would 'pass through' each other! Like a bad collision geometry error in a video game!   

         

       Like I always say, video games are a good example for explaining the universe. Or at least the 3D physical aspect of it.   

       I believe the big cunch is just the universe collapsing on itself. As for this universe maybe being a repeat of the first time it happened, I think that there was no 'first time', but rather it has been repeating the repeat, for forever! It never happened in the first place, yet it happens anyways.
—EvilPickels, Mar 21 2005
   

       According to this weeks' New Scientist (slow day at work), there isn't going to be a big crunch. Apparently, the universe is accelerating outwards. The same article claims that, although the universe is only (say) 14billions years old, it's 28 billion light years across. ...oh, no, wait, that actually works. Lemme see that article again...
—moomintroll, Mar 22 2005
   

       Yes, it's all a bit discouraging when, just as string-theorists are about to tie the knot on the Very Last and Final Theory of Everything, some bugger discovers that the whole universe happens to be expanding ever-faster due to some hitherto unsuspected force.
—Basepair, Mar 22 2005
   

       It’s centrifugal force. The entire universe is rotating.
—Shz, Mar 22 2005
   

       Around three axes at the same time? This I like even less.
—Basepair, Mar 22 2005
   

       Hey... yah nevah no... lol
—EvilPickels, Mar 23 2005
   

       I've been reading "the constants of nature", and in that book, the author states that there have been studies that show only 3 Dimensions +1 Time are stable enough to produce life that can ask the question, *except* at very small levels (i.e. quantum).
<my thinking>, that might explain why light takes all possible paths?
—Ling, Mar 23 2005
   

       In my personal, humble opinion...   

       The biggest obstacle to understanding these types of theories is that humans relate everything they experience to everything else. (Psychologists call this "schema" thought.) Quantum particles have nothing (and yet everything) to do with me, or with anything I do everyday. I take them on their own, by their own rules as themselves, and try to understand them on their own level. Sure apples and skateboards don't suddenly pop into existence countered by anti-apples and anti-skateboards, but in the quantum universe these things absolutely do happen. (The edges of black holes are a nice place to find proof of it, too.)   

       If matter paired with anti-matter can pop into existence from nothing, only to annihilate one another less than a few milliseconds later, why can't a universe and an anti-universe pop into existence?   

       Don't worry about fleeing gnab gib... worry about the anti-Universe that's going to come crashing into us sometime in Time.   

       ;-)
—justibone, Mar 23 2005
   

       At the instant of the big-bang, the universe must have been a single, simple thing - probably very much like one of these blob/anti-blob pairs that wink into and out of existence every so often.   

       However, something else happened, something snuck in through the gap and stopped the usual calculations rounding themselves off and canceling one another out. Trying desperately to annihilate themselves, they interacted with one another and before anyone could do anything about it, had created a whole load of forces and interactions and sub-atomic particles, all still trying desperately to self-destruct.   

       Of course, because the 'thing' that had snuck in had unbalanced everything in such a slight and subtle way, only a very few were able to wink out of existence, leaving an embarrassed hunk of matter and energy to build itself out of nothing and go flying off in all the new directions it had invented.   

       Time passed...and all the energy and matter continued to interact in ever complex ways, forming into clumps with a gentle affinity to other clumps.   

       Soon enough vast galaxies of condensed matter exploded into fiery light, and still the stuff of the universe folded in on itself, trying to simplify, trying to escape from existence. But with each failed attempt, some missed factor created something new, something more complex, and something able to interact with other things in yet more complex ways. A chemical bonded with another chemical, now far too solid to have aspirations of nullism, just exploring the interactive space with its neighbours. The new chemical encouraged those around it to do the same...   

       And so the story goes on. What if the universe itself exists because of this ubiquitous property of self-referential, self-generating, self-complication?   

       Maybe, once it has achieved the creation of something so complex, it will be able to work out finally how to end itself. By which point, would it *want* to?
—zen_tom, Mar 23 2005
   

       <not relevant to this discussion> One thing I don't understand - how come ideas sometimes move to the top of the Recent list even though no-one has added an annotation (like this one had done *before* I added this annotation)? <nrttd>
—Basepair, Mar 24 2005
   

       Perhaps the anti-universe is travelling backwards in time? Perhaps several universes are travelling 'sideways,' each in their own 'time zone.'   

       [justibone], yep, you've nailed the issue. Personally, I think there might be a whole bunch of plausible theories that might fit just as well as string theory, or better.
—RayfordSteele, Mar 24 2005
   

       And biros.
—Ling, Mar 24 2005
   

       ldischler, that's an interesting link...(or light is getting slower)...seems I don't have to warn my offspring about the end of the universe, anymore.
What a relief!
—Ling, Mar 24 2005
   

       >>matter paired with anti-matter can pop into existence from nothing...   

       This doesn't make sense to me -- it seems like there shoud be something at work like the a 3D pencil being poked though a piece of paper and "just appearing" in the 2D world. Are there explanations like this for matter and antimatter?
—JesusHChrist, Mar 24 2005
   

       At the end of the Universe, more likely:
Twelve, Eleven, Ten, Nine.....and one hell of a firework display.
—Ling, Mar 24 2005
   

       JHC: "matter paired with anti-matter can pop into existence from nothing... This doesn't make sense to me"

Basically, it comes down to the fact that nature does not have the computing power to keep the natural laws running at infinite detail. Space just doesn't have enough maths in it to ensure that every particle has precise momentum and position, or that every last shred of energy is accounted for every moment. So, on a small enough scale, just about anything goes. Bigger accounting errors are more likely to get noticed, but even these slip through now and again, which is why even extreme quantum fluctuations slip through now and again and give rise to a whole universe.

That's what I reckon, anyway. Sort of a cosmology based on sloppy book-keeping.
—Basepair, Mar 24 2005
   

       //nature does not have the computing power to keep the natural laws running at infinite detail.//   

       Really? It can only have a finite computing power, if the math is finite. If the math is infinite, then nature will, by law have infinite computing power!   

       I've been wondering something for a while, does anyone know if black holes gravity comes from 'all around' or a defined point? Like in a star, it comes from the stars center, or does the blackhole just envelop an object in gravity once it crosses the horizon? I just want to know this, it might solve whether one of my ideas actually works or not.   

       Also, is there an area or limit to how far a black holes gravity can reach? I never really understood if it did or not. Does the gravity reach out across the event horizon? Is the event horizon that disc around the edge of the black hole? Is the even horizon, not an actual thing, but a dimenion, of which things happen on?   

         

       I love discussions like this.
—EvilPickels, Mar 24 2005
   

       A star's gravity does not come from its centre. If you dropped you ultra-heat-and-pressure resistant spaceship into a star and held place near the centre you'd feel hardly any gravity at all. Conversely, a balck hold has all its gravity eminating from the singularity which is zero-dimensional. The closer you get to the centre of a black hole the more gravity you feel.   

       The black hole's gravity is, like all objects with mass, theoretically infinite. However, because of the inverse square rule it drops off pretty sharpish at a certain distance (affected by the mass) from the singulairty. The event horizon is merely the boundary at which you would have to travel faster than light to escape.
—Cats Whiskers, Mar 24 2005
   

       [Evil] "//nature does not have the computing power to keep the natural laws running at infinite detail.// Really? It can only have a finite computing power, if the math is finite. If the math is infinite, then nature will, by law have infinite computing power!"   

       What I meant was a kind of woolly idea about why everything is uncertain at the quantum level. The reasoning behind it is sort of lousy and anthropomorphic, but perhaps it has some more objective correlate. Basically, I don't see how space can 'obey' laws down to infinite resolution - there has to be some sort of 'mathematical gadgetry' inherent in space to ensure that it acts according to certain laws, equivalent to sayng that space has to have some 'computing power' (I'm putting all this in quotes because I do not mean it quite literally.) So, there must be a volume of space so small (coupled with a duration of time so short) that there simply isn't the 'computing power' within it to ensure adherence to the laws. And this is why things go screwey at the quantum level. Space just doesn't have the 'computing power' to apply all the laws instantaneously over infinitesimal distances.
—Basepair, Mar 24 2005
   

       But nothing has to 'compute' anything. If you throw a ball into the air and catch it, does nature worry about the increased complexity due to the presence of air drag on the position and velocity? Nope.
—RayfordSteele, Mar 24 2005
   

       Good arguement, nut in a computer, absolutely everything has to happen perfectly, and obey all laws of the engine, in order for it to work properly. If for example you modded the engine, to cause it to do something that would cause an inprobability. The engine, once reaching the improbable situation, would have an 'exception', as in computer terms.   

       Once this occurs, the computer no longer knows what to do. It crashes. I reverts back to basic code to shut the game down, so it does not cause damage to itself.   

       I am not sure what happened before exceptions were fixed, but I can imagine a computer over heating, and exploding or something.   

       Now, if you are right (I'm on neither side here) say for example a nuclear bomb goes off. I think this might be an example of an exception. The reaction from the bomb exploding, causes and exception, resulting in the explosion. But that's just me guessing around.   

       When a black hole is created, the gravity overcomes the physical barriers that keep objects from imploding in on themselves. I'm guessing if this happens, that the atoms that made up the star, all become all in one spot.   

       That just sparked a thought in my head, gravity is a bunch of mass all grouped together. Now, the more grouped together, the more gravity it has in one space. So, if you could compact the planet into one space, the more gravity it would SEEM to have, when it actually just has the same as before, but in one space!   

       Gravity is does not increase as more mass gathers near it, gravity is a set amount of force. It has a set amount of speed that an object can fall. It has a set amount of how much force it can give off as more matter gathers near it!   

       Like, you have two atoms (I'm sticking with two atoms, even though it is a small amount of matter, because it is easier to understand), and they both have a percent of increase per atom. This percent of increase is .50% per every atom atained. So, the atoms multiply times the .50 %. Now, you have 1. Now, the two atoms cling to each other, and have anough power to attract another atom cluster, equal to or less than their own. Now, they multiply by the .50% again, and the process repeats.   

       Soon they have alot, and that just multiplies and multiplies!   

       But, once the gravities force becomes greater than the physical barriers between the atoms, the object compacts, breaking through the barriers. The object turns into a black hole! It has the same gravity as it once had, but it is now all massed together in one spot. This does not account for all the extra gravity, that prevents light from escaping. I don't know where that comes from.   

       This is nature's way of preventing all the mass in the universe from becoming one big ball. In a black hole, say a bit of matter gets sucked in. What now? Where does it go? We don't know! But, say this universe is not actually 'empty' like we seem to think of it as, but filled with empty, which to actualy nothing, is actually something! So, if there is nothing and it comes in contact with something, it will try to take all of that something and fill it's nothing with that something. But this is impossible, because nothing is infinite (actual nothing, not nothing is infinite, as in jimmy is infinite, nothing as in, THE nothing)! So it just keeps sucking until there is nothing in either universes! So, the something in the one universe gets sucked out, and in a way, deleted!   

       I have been thinking about how we humans tend to think of ourselves as in empty space, because we are not under water like fish. But in truth, we are unde-air. Look at the trees and grass, it is just like underwater! So, we are 'under-air', but above us is nothing (space), which has very little breathable matter in it. Now, rethink that and you will realize that 'under water' people bringing their environments up in space, isn't so far fatched after all! Just the fact that water is heavier.   

       We do the same as that, just with air.   

       So, there are 3 layers, as in 3 dimenions.   

       1. under water 2. under air 3. space   

       And (we will refer to nothing, as THE nothing from now on) the nothing is on the outside of all this. This is true because if you think about nothing, as being something, it is fathomable. If it wasn't, we could not comprehend this, would not have a clue that this was possible, which would be impossible, and not even impossible, nor possible, to comprehend! Same way why we cannot comprehend moving in four dimensions. So, if this happend, it would cause an exception, which would crash the game.   

       Now, imagine lag in a video game, you know how your computer slows down, but you stay in waiting for it to clear up? Well, with a computer, the computer does not know it is lagging, because it has no revelation of time to our universe, as it is to it's universe. So, if we are lagging right now as we speak, we wouldn't know it. Because we have no outside clocks or intervention to show us that we are lagging! It could be a million trillion years of lag in one second in a bigger universe, which ours is inside of.   

       That is the theory of there being infinitely smaller universes, inside smaller universe, for on an on! An atom in our universe, could be a whole other universe to our universe, but it is to small for us to get to.   

       Now, say we created another universe, it's entire time span, or life, would be virtually nothing in our time. Which could mean some sort of life developed inside that universe, and maybe even escaped, into our universe! One atom of air in our universe, might be the entire universe for another universe, which would be something we could live on, but to them would be virtually empty space. Which to us is the nothing. It might take several smaller universes to make up one atom in our universe. This could prove the theory that this universe is just happening over and over again, because the smaller universes are mini scale, and REPEATS of our universe!   

       So, now do you get what I'm going on about? The universe isn't infinite, nor is it finite, it is BOTH, in every aspect.
—EvilPickels, Mar 25 2005
   

       I think I just had an exception.
—Ling, Mar 25 2005
   

       Blah blah blah. There's just no escaping the Big Crunch. Why worry though; it might not even happen. Space-Time might just keep expanding as it always has been, at an increasing rate, till there's nary a star visible in the sky.
—mailtosalonga, Mar 25 2005
   

       [Evilpickels] - I'm not sure I followed that. In fact I'm sure I didn't. But I'll keep trying.   

       [Rayfordsteele] "But nothing has to 'compute' anything. If you throw a ball into the air and catch it, does nature worry about the increased complexity due to the presence of air drag on the position and velocity? Nope." Well, in a sense, yep. I don't mean 'compute' in the literal sense, but the ball behaves differently because it is being impacted by gas molecules. However, I am thinking more of events at the quantum level. I guess I am just rephrasing a very old question which is 'why does nature obey these relatively simple laws which we can express mathematically?'. It is kind of an abstract and unanswerable question which various physicists have asked - what is the mechanism by which the laws of physics are adhered to?   

       It may be a meaningless question (in the sense that there may be no way to approach an answer), or it may not be. I am not sure, but I just have a gut feeling that the reason nature behaves so weirdly on very small scales is that there just isn't "room" to ensure that physical laws apply.
—Basepair, Mar 25 2005
   

       [BP] I agree with you about 'compute' making sense there. But I think (for instance) Fredkin's "universe is a big computer" means that everything is explainable in those terms -- not that some stuff is computable and other stuff not.   

       When people ask, 'why does nature obey these simple laws?' I think they mean, 'and not just one law." Like you say: "what is the (underlying and one) mechanism by which the laws of physics are adhered to? "   

       There can't be two or three things at work here - one that pulls (gravity), one that pushes (EM), and one that does whatever the fuck it wants to do (Quantum). There's got to be a way of looking at it where all of these things are explainable in terms of one of the others.
—JesusHChrist, Mar 26 2005
   

       [JHC] I think we're on slightly different wavelengths. The question of whether or not there is one underlying law is one thing - this is what the quest for a Theory of Everything is about, and I suspect there ought to be one such underlying law.   

       But regardless of whether there is a ToE or not (I mean, even if we never find a link between the forces), there remains the question of how things obey whatever laws there are. Two particles attract gravitationally depending on the inverse square of the distance between them - how? There ought to be a mechanism (or, at worst, one mechanism for each force) in some sense.
—Basepair, Mar 26 2005
   

       It's to diffacult to explain, just re-read it. You have to pay very close attention.   

       And yeah, this part:   

       //That just sparked a thought in my head, gravity is a bunch of mass all grouped together. Now, the more grouped together, the more gravity it has in one space. So, if you could compact the planet into one space, the more gravity it would SEEM to have, when it actually just has the same as before, but in one space!// is quite contradictory >.< .   

       But, I still know what I meant by that. I'm not going to bother explaining it. Translating it would be a hassle.
—EvilPickels, Mar 27 2005
   

       [Evil] //I'm not going to bother explaining it.// That's OK. Do you mind if I don't bother trying to understand it?
—Basepair, Mar 27 2005
   

       Almost a year has passed, and I still think you are all nerds. - - - - Long live the "random" hyperlink.
—mailtosalonga, Feb 21 2006
   

       Then I suppose I ought to offer my congratulations to you, for surviving another year without falling into anything big and black.
—Ling, Feb 21 2006
   

       OK, let's just say that we (or whoever) makes a spaceship & was able to escape the big crunch. What then? All the stars & other energy sources will be gone. once the power is gone on the ship, that's it. This ship could be a Dyson sphere that could last the lifetime of it's sun, but that would be just a few billion years. No one knows if the universe will return in another big bang. This whole arguement reminds me of an episode of Deep Space Nine where the mutants (humans who intelligence was geneticlly inhanced but are also super nurotic) tackled the same problem "we're running out of time! we have only a few billion years at most!"
—the great unknown, Mar 15 2006
   

       //If the universe is constantly expanding, then the stuff outside the universe must be constantly shrinking// Or the pressure of the stuff outside the universe is increasing, pushing back on the universe, and limiting its expansion. Or something.
—coprocephalous, Mar 15 2006
   
      
[annotate]
   


 

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