Forget ISIS, Hackers and Money—The Universe Is About to Collapse

[Arty]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/forget-isis-hackers-money-universe-195500241.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/collapse-of-the-universe-is-imminent-catastrophic-event-could-explain-mysteries-of-the-universe-even-if-its-not-for-billions-of-years-10131256.html

 

Forget ISIS, plane crashes in the ALPS, your student loan, Hillary’s emails, interest rates, Vladimir Putin, the Iran Deal, Ted Cruz, and anything else that keeps you up at night.

Here’s one that could put us all to sleep—permanently. Physicists have figured out that our universe is on an “imminent” track to collapse. As PhysOrg put it, the universe will soon stop expanding and collapse in on itself, obliterating all matter as we know it. To physicists, imminent is like dog years writ large—meaning tens of billions of years, give or take.

Nemanja Kaloper at the University of California, Davis and Antonio Padilla at the University of Nottingham have “proposed a mechanism” for cosmological collapse. Yup…thanks to these two fat brains, we can now safely invest in the manufacturer of Xanax, confident that the sales of the anxiety pill will likely skyrocket (no pun intended).

"The fact that we are seeing dark energy now could be taken as an indication of impending doom, and we are trying to look at the data to put some figures on the end date," Padilla told Phys.org. "Early indications suggest the collapse will kick in in a few tens of billions of years, but we have yet to properly verify this."

The story in PhysOrg goes on to describe how the 13.8 billion year old universe evolves.  It’s complicated. Whenever you have accelerated expansion and dark matter, you might as well throw in the towel—at least that’s what I took away from the report.

"There is much to do," Padilla told PhysOrg. “Over the longer term, we would like to understand how our theory could emerge from a more fundamental theory, such as string theory. It is also important to ask what happens when we consider vacuum energy corrections from quantum gravity."

Sounds perfectly logical, right? Then came Padilla’s Xanax conclusion:

"The present epoch of acceleration may be evidence of impending doom. . . A detailed analysis to better quantify these predictions is certainly warranted."

This is yahoo news so not sure how creditable, ill look up more links

Edited March 24, 2015 by Arty

[minibois]

Oh no guys! I only have a few ten billion years to live!

Oh wait..

[Jobbe03]

"Early indications suggest the collapse will kick in in a few tens of billions of years, but we have yet to properly verify this" oh

[thekeemo]

imminent in science can mean "only a couple million years"

[Derykey]

Oh no guys! I only have a few ten billion years to live!

Oh wait...

Sorry, Ment to say is i think you have more enough time to live before that happens, (Just make sure the astroid doesnt hit us first)

Edited March 24, 2015 by Derykey

[flibberdipper]

Well, shit. For some reason this made that fear of death thing kick in again... Fucking hell, stupid brain.

[C0LL0SS0S]

Well I guess I am on my way to hollywood to have some fun with my favourite stars as long as I can

[Deli]

I'd rather worry about ISIS. Ted Crus and the like. 

 

1st April is still a week away.

[qwertywarrior]

much sensation

[Sauron]

Physicists don't even really know anything certain about the big bang, or if it ever even happened... even if they had said 100 years, it would be a wild guess at best. Hence the word theory.

[Dabombinable]

Shazbot

[c3p0_]

With my food and living habbits I'm happy if they give me 60 years to go. Billion years. Well kids, there is no santa.

[ThisIsMyWorkAccount]

Well, shit. For some reason this made that fear of death thing kick in again... Fucking hell, stupid brain.

I hate it when that happens.

[Thony]

Whoever has written tyat article tried too hard. I smell too much sarcasm. Especially when i read 1 sentence and the one which says "billion years"...

My life lost meaning a while back and i have no motivation, i personally would like this to happen in maximum of 10 years... Not joking.

Edit: I think that this " research" is so stupid that articke writer made fun of the people at Notingham Uni.

Frankly, anybody can say anything if it is supposed be in billion years...none of us will know if its true or even possible. Nobody can imagine billion years, let alone predicting anything.

[TAK]

.

[Verne]

Wasn't the collapse end theory put to rest since big freeze (expansion keeps happening until there is no more energy left and everything stays still, atoms too far apart of each other to be affected by gravity) and great rip (ever increasing acceleration causes everything to rip apart at atomic level), or however they were called, were deemed more plausible end of universe scenarios?

[mr moose]

Old theory re birthed with new imaginations.  Remind me to be scared in a billion years.

[dalekphalm]

Physicists don't even really know anything certain about the big bang, or if it ever even happened... even if they had said 100 years, it would be a wild guess at best. Hence the word theory.

While this article is ridiculous to all end, I don't know if you understand what theory means in a scientific context. I could certainly be wrong, and if so, I humbly apologize, but it sounds like you're using "Theory" in the laymans definition.

 

Here's a good explanation between the differences of Scientific vs general use "Theory" (Fair warning, it's a bit long):

http://thinking-critically.com/2010/07/08/theory-scientific-vs-laymans-definition/

 

TL;DR:

Scientific theories are anything but a "wild guess at best".

[dalekphalm]

Old theory re birthed with new imaginations.  Remind me to be scared in a billion years.

lol even in a Billion years, that'd be too early to worry.

 

I doubt Humanity will even exist during the time of the collapse of the universe. And if it does, then it would likely have evolved into something we would not even recognize.

[SurvivorNVL]

Meeeeh.. I'm sure we'll transcend in to beings of pure energy within a few million years.  We're fiiiiine.

[Sauron]

While this article is ridiculous to all end, I don't know if you understand what theory means in a scientific context. I could certainly be wrong, and if so, I humbly apologize, but it sounds like you're using "Theory" in the laymans definition.

 

Here's a good explanation between the differences of Scientific vs general use "Theory" (Fair warning, it's a bit long):

http://thinking-critically.com/2010/07/08/theory-scientific-vs-laymans-definition/

 

TL;DR:

Scientific theories are anything but a "wild guess at best".

 

Yeah, I know, it's just that it's hard to convey a complex idea in a one-line post ^^ sure, it's not a wild guess at all, but they could be so completely wrong that the difference would be very little.

[Admiral Naismith]

For f*ck sake you got my hopes up.

 

But we all know that this is all just a simulation. Lets face it.

[EtaCarinae]

Holy clickbait, Batman. Physorg doing their usual thing it seems.

[MoonSpot]

Idiotic. Why isn't there any evidence, observational data or even a theory in the article? Is making fated and poetic brain farts all it takes to make a theory that gets picked up by the news?

Given the mountains of data and observations gathered by millions which confirm that the universe is not only expanding but expanding at an ever increasing rate.  I'm going to call BS and point an accusing finger at the OP for subjecting others to this.
The big crunch theory was discredited long ago. This is no different.

[dalekphalm]

Yeah, I know, it's just that it's hard to convey a complex idea in a one-line post ^^ sure, it's not a wild guess at all, but they could be so completely wrong that the difference would be very little.

Haha so true.

 

Also, even if they are "accurate" with these theories, even a minor inaccuracy could mean hundreds of millions of years in either direction.

 

Either way, I'm not worried about the universe ending at all during humanities reign, let alone during my own life.