Universe will collapse

[Tormod]

Get ready to pack your bags - we're leaving for another Universe very soon.

 

Universe is doomed to collapse

[Noah]

The way it looks, we may not know what is going to happen until it happens, because it is getting hard to keep up with whether the universe is going to keep expanding or stop and collapse the way they keep changing their theories. As a guy I know says, first WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND GRAVITY BEFORE WE START GUESSING AT OTHER THINGS (whether speed of light is constant, etc.).

 

Noah

[Sharky]

The universe is collapsing and expanding at the same time. Check out my posting for Warp Mechanics in this forum. I swear it explains everything, Quantum gravity, Universal expansion(stability and structure), behavior of Quanta, What the Quanta actually are and how they sustain themselves as individual entities that work in unison to maintain a sub-universal balance... you name it! It is completely flawless. But I'm nobody,right? We'll see.

 

Michael Dill

(boy wonder)

[MoonChaserA41CBR]

Romeo and Juliet?

[MoonChaserA41CBR]

i aint going to pack my bags in this lifetime. lol. might happen very soon but thats a LONG time in space/time!

[MoonChaserA41CBR]

lol. i wish Einstein was around to read about Quantum gravity! Hey. i'm heading over there to read about it myself!

[Wannabe Genius]

Hi.

 

I only got into theoretical physics quite recently, funnily enough as a result of working on music theory, and how music is intricatly linked with more than just its self and mathematics.

 

As part of my work on Music theory, I began to investigate Pythagoras's concept of Musica Mundana, then expanded his work to encompass the entire universe, effectivly attempting to describe the universe as music on a very large scale. Part of that work was to describe the universe as acting as a sine wave, which, seeing as everything else can be described as acting in such a fashion, I can see no reason for the universe its self not to.

 

Anyway, back to the point. In order to describe the universe as a sine wave, I needed to understand various elements about it, which fall under the heading Theoretical physics.

One of the places I looked for information was the local Library, where I referenced a book called "The New Cosmology" published by Icon Critical Dictionaries in 1998, Within that book, they made the statement that light would have slowed down as the universe cooled. Having seen this statement, seeming to back up the idea's I was already formulating, I looked elsewhere for information on the idea of light slowing down, but could find no other reference to it at all prior to today when I found this forum purely by chance.

 

Now, in order for the universe to collapse under musical laws, light will have to turn 180¢ª. This can only be achieved under gravity, which, if I have understood this correctly, could already be underway. (Speculation only)

Once Gravity has a firm hold on light, it will reach the apex of its rotation within 1/36 of the total lifespan of the universe. From then on in, we can presume that light, and matter will accellerate back towards point zero at a rate of at least C = (Gravity*Temperature) / Density. There may be other factord involved, I dont know, like I said, I am a beginner at this, I'm a musician first.

 

The problem I have with the big bang theory (actually theres several but thats another matter) is that it states that when the big crunch comes, everything will be squeezed into a singularity within a very short space of time, less than 1 second. Now, consider this. An awefull lot of matter is moving at an extremly high velocity and at extremly high temperatures towards a very tiny region of space. That gives it a heck of a lot of energy. Now, in contrast to black holes in which the energy has space to escape into (in the form of radiation, Stephen Hawkings "A brief History of time") the big crunch singularity will not have that luxury; It will be surrounded by a pure vacuum which cannot contain radiation of any form (unlike space which contains stellar matter, dust, asteroids, etc...). So, where is this energy going to go?

 

I put it to you that if the universe is to collapse back into a singularity, it will do so in the same manner as a ball thrown violently at a brick wall. Its going to bounce. Not only that, I further surmise that it has already been repeating this cycle since the beginning of time.

 

I would like to hear your comments on this theory, like I said, I am new to this so forgive me if I'm going over old ground.

 

In relation to this I would like to bring up a second matter. Time.

 

Certain scientists seem to be convinced that time can flow backward. It cant. Under no circumstances can time flow backwards. However, for those time travel enthusiasts, all is not (quite) lost. Whilst time its self cannot flow backward, events on a timeline can be re-arranged to a certain degree. However, time will constantly be moving foward. Likewise, time is constsant, however, events on the timeline may appear at different intervals, (clock theory's, black hole theory's). It is not time that is changing, only the events on the timeline, or more precisely, our perception of events on the timeline.

 

Let me know your views on these matters.

 

look farward to reading them.

 

Btw, has anyone ever seen any

[Noah]

Originally posted by Wannabe Genius

 

 

 

The problem I have with the big bang theory (actually theres several but thats another matter) is that it states that when the big crunch comes, everything will be squeezed into a singularity within a very short space of time, less than 1 second. Now, consider this. An awefull lot of matter is moving at an extremly high velocity and at extremly high temperatures towards a very tiny region of space. That gives it a heck of a lot of energy. Now, in contrast to black holes in which the energy has space to escape into (in the form of radiation, Stephen Hawkings "A brief History of time") the big crunch singularity will not have that luxury; It will be surrounded by a pure vacuum which cannot contain radiation of any form (unlike space which contains stellar matter, dust, asteroids, etc...). So, where is this energy going to go?

 

Just my .02 cents

Won't the energy be inside the "universe"? It would be the energy that would cause the universe to explode (Big Bang-Again) once it reached critical pressure.

[Wannabe Genius]

oops, sorry, wrong button

 

That is what I have been thinking, however, again referencing Stephen Hawkings "A brief History of time", and various other works along similar lines, the idea of the universe repeating as I suggest was dismissed around 1970-78 as being unfeasible, hence the question of "what will happen to all that energy" I am attaching my work on the subject for your review, please bear in mind that although this is a work in progress, some of the idea's contained within are subject to copyright.

 

Martin

[Tormod]

Martin,

 

while I like your "musical" approach (rather Platonic, I'd say, what with the "music of the spheres" and all) , maybe because I have a bachelor of Music Performance myself, there is nothing original in the idea that there can be multiple universes. Martin Rees calls this ensemble of all possible universes the "Multiverse", of which you can read more in his book "Our cosmic habitat" (which I'm sorry we haven't reviewed at Hypography yet). Also Marcus Chown discusses this at length in his "The Universe Next Door" (a book I did not like due to its sensationalist approach).

 

That light must turn around in order for the Universe to fall back on itself is a strange theory. It assumes that the Universe is three-dimensional and that it is finite. But I don't think there is any reason to believe that an eventual "big crunch" would start as a recoil of the Universe not being able to expand any more. If light is to turn 180 degrees, so must any other form of radiation and any physical object in order for your speculations to work.

 

That the speed of light is slowing down is indeed an interesting observation, which recently was confirmed by Australian astronomers. I recently talked to John Barrow, who does a lot of work on the varying alpha constant, about his book "The Constants of Nature" (our review here), and to better understand the constants and what we perceive as the laws of nature, I can warmly recommend any of Professor Barrow's books. If you don't mind reading the hard stuff, his "The Anthropic Principle" (1986) is an extraordinary book which defines modern cosmology. Here you will find many difficult concepts, and since Barrow is a mathematician it is also chokeful of maths.

 

I agree with Noah that assuming that space is "expanding into" something is a fruitless line of thought. The energy of the Universe _is_ the Universe. According to standard cosmological theory, there can't be something "outside" of it, because it would then be a part of it (this is not really a paradox, merely a matter of definition). For there to be something outside our Universe which would NOT be a part of it, we must the assume, as you do, that the Universe is finite - or we must assume that there are Universes which are not connected in a way which unites them.

 

It is impossible today to prove whether the Universe is finite or not. But what we do know is that the "observeable universe" is indeed finite - but only in the time dimension. It is the Universe as we see it at our time, when the light we see has spent about 14 billion years travelling towards us from all directions. In another billion years the size of the observeable universe will have changed, so even if it's finite it is not constant...We are located smash in the middle of this observable Universe - much like one can imagine a ship on the ocean seeing a circle-shaped horizon all around it, not being able to peer beyond the horizon. So it is inside a 4-dimensional universe - the observeable universe is a circle drawn on an imaginary 2D surface of an imaginary 3D balloon, only that we have to add one extra dimension to both these ideas (which makes them impossible to comprehend). The circle is what we see, and everyone located anywhere on this balloon surface sees a circle which is exactly as big, but it contains a different part of the Universe. (Also, there is nothing "inside" the balloon, which is one reason why this analogy is a bit difficult).

 

You mention a pulsating effect, that the Universe is born, expands, contracts, and is then reborn. This cycle is of course impossible to prove, but is also at the heart of many modern theories. One of them would belong to what is termed M-theory, or an advanced form of string theory. String theory does not allow singularities, and therefore (according to str

[Wannabe Genius]

Thanks for that, I will look up some of Barrows work, I am desperate to get hold of mathematical theories, mostly for comparison to musical terms, but I do need mathematical backing for my own theories on the universe.

 

I am aware of other concepts of multiple univi, however, most run along the lines of "Us following a different lifestyle", a concept which I simply do not like in the slightest. Not that I think it can't happen, I just dont feel comfortable with it.

 

The way I visualise the universe is, like many of the more common theories, as an expanding baloon, however, I'm not sure about the bit about us only being on the surface of the baloon with nothing inside, I feel more comfortable with the concept of us being on the inside and time being the walls of the balloon.

 

When I speak of light I am usually considering the entire EM spectrum, sorry, thats my mistake, I should have defined it better. Also, I work on the assumption that as nothing can travel faster than light, then by the time light reaches a point where it can do a U turn, then all other matter would have already reached that point and be on the way back. As light is the "fastest" substance known, then it will have travelled the furthest etc.

 

String theories? until this week I hadn't even heard of the concept, I should be most interested to read about them. Thanks.

 

Speaking of time, my statement about time not being able to flow backward, let me explain.

 

Ok, you've built your theoretical time machine, you step into it and switch on. If time was to flow backward, one of two things must happen.

 

a) you have to step outside of time, in which case you would lose all perception of time. In this case, how would you know if you were going backwards or forwards? how would you know when to stop? all thought processes would cease to exist as they are based on the idea of one thought after another, if time doesnt exist, all thoughts would have to happen at the same time. Even something so simple as your heart pumping wouldnt be possible for again, it would be trying to pump in at the same time as pumping out. The only way to leave this state would be to turn the machine off, but machines work on clocks too, the machine wouldnt know when to switch off because its internal clock would have ceased to function. Which brings us on to case b.

 

B) Your perception of time would remain running forward yet events around you are running backwards, bringing us back to my statement about time not being able to run backwards. the events in time would run in a different order, yet time its self is moving forward, for you anyway.

 

if time were to run backwards for you as well, then wouldnt you simply get younger? to the point where you werent even born? Most time machine theories I've read, (Ok, so they have all been sci-fi ones) work on the principle that you stay the same age whilst travelling backwards in time, and that events happen in sequence, e.g. you watch a building slowly being (un)built, or built in reverse. The only way for that to happen is if time for you moves forward. Its all about perception. Its a bit like playing a piece of music backwards. The clock still counts forwards, but every even is reversed, crescendo's become decrescendo's, etc, all the events in the piece are there, only the order in which they occur in is the exact opposite, yet the clock is still running forward. Try it and see.

 

As for you rambling? if thats rambling I'd love to see what you come out with when you're being serious.

Mind you, I often think the same, that I'm rambling, or I did until I recorded myself rambling once and played it back the next day. Its a very usefull excercise recording yourself. Another usefull one is simply to start typing/writing. (this one has some name but I cant recall it) It doesnt matter what you type, but eventually what you are trying to say, or th

[Tormod]

Martin,

 

I think one needs to distinguish between the physical possibility of time travel versus the "human perspective". Time travel in physics is usually not though of as a real "machine" thing, it is simply a metaphor. Thus, we are not in HG Well's world here.

 

Time travel in a four-dimensional Universe is not as silly as it may seem. The observer who travels back in time does not see time travel backwards. Rather, he moves from one position in space-time to another in a way which is not intuitive, and which is closely related to the speed of light.

 

What is the shortest distance between two points in space? It is a straight line between A and B. But in warped space-time, the shortest distance might well be curved. But what if you could move from one place to another without actually traversing the space in between? This is what physicists speculate is happening with "wormholes", which are tunnels which rip through space-time and connects two points which are far, far away. A good analogy is a sheet of paper. If you put the sheet of paper on a table, and use a pen to place a dot near the top of the page, and another near the bottom, it is obvious that the shortest path is a straight line. But now take the sheet of paper, and fold it so that the two points are on each side of the folded paper. Now punch a hole through the paper such that it passes through both points. The shortest path is now very, very short, and it goes right through the paper. But it is _the same_ piece of paper!

 

So this is a discussion which necessitates an understanding of a multidimensional space which has at least four dimensions, one of which is time.

 

But, and this is important: you need not attain the speed of light yourself to travel backwards in time. Consider this example, taken from Paul Davies' book. Imagine that our two holes on the paper are actually two endpoints of a wormhole ripping through space. When we enter one endpoint, we immediately exit from the other endpoint, with no noticeable passage of time.

 

Now, (this is of course mere speculation), imagine that we can tow one of the endpoints to, say, Alpha Centauri. This will take thousands of years. But as soon as the other enpoint reaches Alpha Centauri, you can instantly tavel back to Earth. If you were born on Alpha Centauri, you would then reach Earth at a time which has not yet been observed at your position in space-time, because light from Earth at the present time has not yet reached Alpha Centauri. You would, for all practical purposes, have travelled much faster than light, but all you have done is make an instant move in space-time. When at Earth, if you point a telescope towards Alpha Centauri, you will see the star system as it was many years ago, and not as it is there today. So _compared to the light_ you have travelled backwards in time.

 

This is one example which in fact shows one theoretical way to traverse vast distances in space without the passage of time. That wormholes may be used in this fashion is disputed and may not be feasible on a human scale, but perhaps it can be used to send instant communication between inhabitants of two systems separated by thousands of lightyears?

 

For all observers time must flow forwards. This is an innate function of our Universe, and it is called the Arrow of time. (See ourhypography on the arrow of time for more on this). It does not mean that the observer's position in space-time cannot move backwards in time! Inside your own frame everything is moving at a constant rate, you do not perceive any change at all. But the world outside changes at a different rate. Whether it can actually bring you back in time is not a matter of physiology - that is a question which is philosophical in nature, not physical.

 

More sources (some are a bit dated now):

 

We also have a <a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.hypography.com/top

[Tormod]

Martin,

 

one more point: your example of a musical piece played backwards is not valid. When you turn the piece backwards you do not change the arrow of time, so you still perform it in the passage of time in your space-time observational frame. There is nothing innate in a piece of music which can disjoint the person playing it from the flow of time.

 

It's like playing a movie backwards. You do observe time moving backwards in the movie, but you do not move backwards in time yourself.

 

In order to travel back in time one needs to see that time is a property of space-time, something which we as of yet cannot do anything with because we do not understand how it is constructed. This is why I suggest you read up on superstrings, because in string theory space-time is very different from conventional, physical theories, especially at the planck level (the smalles possible distance in space-time). Some string theorists claim that space-time at this size is a "foamy", 10 or 11-dimensional entity in which both time and space may flow in any direction.

 

Tormod

[Buzzwang2003]

Hi Martin. I'm new to these Forums so if I mess up, please forgive. I was surprised that you are not familiar with string theory. May I make a few suggestions as to some good reading on the subject? THE UNIVERSE IN A NUTSHELL by Stephen Hawking and HYPERSPACE by Machio Kaku, are good starts. There are many, many more and perhaps some of the other contributors here will have some suggestions. And then there is the Brane business. Go to Hawking for that too. I must say tormod is about as informed and beautifully expressive a moderator as I've ever come across on any subject! I'm looking forward to coming back and just reading his posts!

Buzzwang

[fatty_ashy]

Originally posted by: tormod

Martin,

 

What is the shortest distance between two points in space? It is a straight line between A and B. But in warped space-time, the shortest distance might well be curved. But what if you could move from one place to another without actually traversing the space in between? This is what physicists speculate is happening with "wormholes", which are tunnels which rip through space-time and connects two points which are far, far away. A good analogy is a sheet of paper. If you put the sheet of paper on a table, and use a pen to place a dot near the top of the page, and another near the bottom, it is obvious that the shortest path is a straight line. But now take the sheet of paper, and fold it so that the two points are on each side of the folded paper. Now punch a hole through the paper such that it passes through both points. The shortest path is now very, very short, and it goes right through the paper. But it is _the same_ piece of paper!

 

 

Hi tormod, there is something I did not understand about your analogy. According about you said about the piece of a paper, it seems that a wormhole actually just "folds" the surface of space, rather than rip the fabric of space. Unless there is something here that I do not really catch on to. If a wormhole can literally "rip" space (or rather spacetime), does that mean there is a possibility of being able to step out of spacetime?

 

Originally posted by: tormod

 

 

For all observers time must flow forwards. This is an innate function of our Universe, and it is called the Arrow of time. (See ourhypography on the arrow of time for more on this). It does not mean that the observer's position in space-time cannot move backwards in time! Inside your own frame everything is moving at a constant rate, you do not perceive any change at all. But the world outside changes at a different rate. Whether it can actually bring you back in time is not a matter of physiology - that is a question which is philosophical in nature, not physical.

 

 

You said the observer's position in space-time can move backwards in time, does this have to do to going out and coming back into spacetime again? If so, isn't that what wannabe-genius said?

 

Wannabe Genius said a) you have to step outside of time, in which case you would lose all perception of time. In this case, how would you know if you were going backwards or forwards? how would you know when to stop? all thought processes would cease to exist as they are based on the idea of one thought after another, if time doesnt exist, all thoughts would have to happen at the same time. Even something so simple as your heart pumping wouldnt be possible for again, it would be trying to pump in at the same time as pumping out. The only way to leave this state would be to turn the machine off, but machines work on clocks too, the machine wouldnt know when to switch off because its internal clock would have ceased to function.

 

Now would it not be possible (upon no scientific basis, just pure guessin) to seal yourself in a sphere of normal moving time, even after you have left the realm of normal spacetime; in order to change the position in spacetime, making what wanna_genius' rejected possible?

[Tormod]

Dear fatty_ashy (man, that is a cool nickname)

 

1) The paper sheet analogy shows that the wormhole forces two points in space-time to be connected no matter how far apart they are. The folding is just what _we_ have to do in order to show it. Space-time is four dimensional in nature, while the sheet of paper is 2D, so the analogy is only partly correct. What a wormhole does (in theory, remember) is to connect two points so that anything that goes in one hole comes out of the other, instantly. It's a tunnel in space-time. It does not go _outside_ of space-time, which I think is impossible. (There _is_ not "outside" into which you can go). It's just like a tunnel through a mountain - you can choose to go around it by climbing the mountain (takes a long time) or you can go straight through it (takes very little time). But you don't _avoid_ the mountain, just like you can't _avoid_ space-time.

 

2) My point with the backwards-in-time-motion was that for the person going back in time, time flows normally. It's the rest of the world that moves back in time (as he sees it). His clock actually goes forward. This has nothing to do with going in and out of space-time. It may be that we are actually discussing two things here...

 

3) Again, for me it makes no sense to say "outside of space-time". I can't answer that one. Maybe some else sees this in another way?

 

Tormod

[Sharky]

The energy will go into the centers that yet bare another center yet bare another center and so on and so fourth. But the universe will not consume itself because as it condenses it; it also expands. As matter and space substaining it would condense into the relatively small point of space/time (considerably the center of space at wich point the Big Bang began) another center is exposed by the acceleration into the center where there is yet another center therefore it expands and contracts at the same time. IT GROWS!! Ask me any question and warp mechanics can explain it with such simplicity it seems to easy to be correct but if one where to just think about it and try to see what I'm explaining the simplicity would pass and they'd see how complexly simple it is.