Fate of the Universe

This is the last of dozens of other academic discussions this writer submitted for a course on Astronomy: Exploring the University at the University of Oxford 

Fate of the Universe forum

by lim ju boo 

My Personal View on Fate of The Universe

As promised last night in our regular forum discussion, I like to pose a question and discuss a very important issue on how the Universe will end

Much has been written on the fate of the Universe whether its expansion will go on forever bearing in mind the Hubble “constant” on the rate of expansion, currently 70 km/s that can be revised

However, the constant gravitational pull of all the galaxies in the Universe is universal. It can act as a brake on the inertia of expansion. This of course astronomers would argue depends on the critical mass and density of materials available

But if you were to ask my opinion even though mine may be amateurish, I would think how much mass would not matter in the final day of the Universe, because to my understanding,  gravity is persistent and will always be there as long there are still matter in the Universe even if all the galaxies have burnt their fuel away and turned into an aggregation of degenerate dwarf and neutron stars, or bloated up into giant red stars.  

But I believe  all may eventually clumped together into super huge and super massive black holes like soapy foams aggregating together and collapsing into bigger bubbles on a wet soapy floor 

To my thinking  the total mass in the final days of the Universe maybe less than during the first few moments of the Big Bang because the hydrogen is converted into fusion energy and  helium and other elements. This mass into energy conversion will cause the stars and galaxies to lose mass

Even if all the fuel runs out in this energy conversion, the remnants of mass will still be there where gravity can still act, be they dwarf, red giants, neutrons stars or black holes.

To the best of my understanding in Newtonian physics, as long as there is matter, gravity will be present, and where there is gravity there will always be an attractant force to bring everything together,  albeit gravitational force is the weakest compared with nuclear and electromagnetic forces.

Gravitational forces are eternally present and persistent as long as there are matter and mass in the Universe. How can matter or energy be destroyed except through conversion from one to the other. The net is always the same.

This unyielding force will continue to slow down the inertia of the galactic expansion, and finally drag all the dead galaxies, dark matter, whatever, and all their collective masses or densities together with a force acting inversely as the square of their distances no matter how far they are apart, and finally bring them together as they were before the Big Bang 

Hence, I don’t think density and amount of matter has any say when the eternal force of gravity acts

This is just how I reason it logically, but cosmologists may have their more advanced views to disagree 

Thus the present cooler Universe at just 3 Kelvin between the void and emptiness of intergalactic spaces may begin to warm up hotter and hotter at the last moments  of life of the Universe till the Big Crunch or Big Collapse when it shall be destroyed with fervent heat.

 But this scenario may be repeated again with another Big Bang, a Big Crunch… etc. We will now have a Pulsating Universe like a beating heart with a new heaven and a new earth with each pulse

This is from the scientific point of view if I can reason this scenario reasonably.

Now let me reveal what is written in the Bible.

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10)

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea (Revelation 21)

My apologies for bringing religion and a Creator in this scientific discussion

Note it says “the elements shall melt with fervent heat’. Earlier at the beginning of this course we learn about heat from hydrogen into helium fusion and nucleosynthesis of the elements soon after the Big Bang.

Now the reverse event may come to pass when the elements already there shall come together and  melt with fervent heat when the Universe collapses into a single point in time, space and matter. What about that? This sounds very uncanny to me.  Does that verse ring a bell to Science?

Then further down in the last chapter in Revelation of the Bible it clearly says a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was NO LONGER ANY SEA (Revelation 21). Does that also ring another bell? 

In the Unit 8 on Astrobiology two weeks ago, we discussed the importance of water and life, and if we were to look for life in a habitable planet within the circum-stellar Goldilocks Zone, the presence of water is utmost important, that is life as we know it.

But we have no proper definition of what life is as yet. We have no clue if life in the form as we know it, or in other forms unknown to Science, probably spiritual form also exist in other worlds exist despite Frank Drake’s equation.

But this verse clearly says a new earth will have no sea (water). What about this? This is very errie and supernatural (for me at least).

Think this over. Sorry for bringing in religion or spiritual things into science in this discussion. Kindly do not ridicule or penalize me for the freedom of my own thinking or belief 

I can’t help it as they are just my personal thought just to share. You are free to disagree

Thank you peers and course mates in this course for reading. 

Thank you to Dr. Grant Miller too for teaching us 

Jb lim

Malaysia