# "the Big Rip" vs. inseparable quarks **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2021, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-rip-vs-inseparable-quarks/948409 "2021-08-11T02:25:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-rip-vs-inseparable-quarks/948409/1 "2021-08-11T02:25:29Z")
The Big RIp is the hypothesis in cosmology that if the Dark Energy thought to permeate the cosmos exceeds a certain value in strength, it will eventually lead to an infinite expansion of the universe within a finite time. This accelerating expansion would lead to the destruction of all matter as the expansion of space rips apart all structures: galaxies, then stars, then planets, then molecules, then atoms, then nuclei, then supposedly even nucleons would be ripped into individual quarks. However, I thought it was a feature of particle physics that naked quarks are impossible because any force sufficient to overcome their binding energy would simply split them off into new quark-antiquark pairs. So since I have only a layman’s understanding of the physics in question, what is the answer to this? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-rip-vs-inseparable-quarks/948409/2 "2021-08-11T16:20:48Z")
Well, the short answer is that we don’t know: We don’t know how the Dark Energy works, and we don’t know how quantum mechanics interacts with spacetime. But the best educated-guess calculations we can make seem to show that quantum effects would actually make a Big Rip even more severe. In this particular case of Unstoppable Force vs. Inseparable Objects, it appears that the Unstoppable Force would win. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-rip-vs-inseparable-quarks/948409/3 "2021-08-11T16:38:03Z")
Perhaps this is naïve of me but if dark energy created vast numbers of quark-antiquark pairs that immediately annihilated into photons, this sounds reminiscent of the Big Bang- a sharp inflationary period and a dense sea of high energy photons. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-rip-vs-inseparable-quarks/948409/4 "2021-08-11T19:25:11Z")
But in this situation, they’re not immediately re-annihilating. They’re being separated, so you end up with “impossible” lone quarks far apart from each other. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-rip-vs-inseparable-quarks/948409/5 "2021-08-11T19:58:49Z")
It nonetheless seems to me that the dark energy involved is doing work: creating potential energy where none existed before. Since the expansion isn’t infinitely fast, there is a tiny but nonzero time in which the strain on the quarks should be creating enormous energy densities. But as you said we don’t really know very well how quantum mechanics interacts with spacetime. ETA: do you think this question might be worthy of Ethan Siegel’s attention? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-rip-vs-inseparable-quarks/948409/6 "2021-08-11T21:42:52Z")
Yes, the energies involved would be enormous. And no, conservation of energy doesn’t work the way you think it does, especially not when it comes to cosmology. > [@Lumpy](#): > > ETA: do you think this question might be worthy of Ethan Siegel’s attention? Well, it’s certainly an interesting question, and I don’t doubt that he’d end up saying something interesting in response to it, but it looks like it’s probably outside of his expertise (honestly, it’s probably outside of the expertise of all but maybe a few dozen people in the world, and no, I don’t claim to be one of them).