Last I heard, the universe will continue to expand forever. Suns will die and their remains will make new suns. But not all of the matter is re-used. Eventually there will not be enough matter to fuel new suns. The last star will die. The particles of matter will continue to expand with the universe, but there will be no energy. The universe will be without form, and void.
Life is a fascinating thing. Ignoring how the universe came to be, it’s amazing that we are all made of, as Carl Sagan put it, ‘star stuff’. We are born of long-dead suns. Somehow, this ‘star stuff’ combined to make life. Maybe we’re alone in the universe, and maybe we’re not; but I think that the universe might be filled with life. (Which is not to say I believe in ‘UFOs’, as the term is commonly used.) There may be other life in our own solar system. Perhaps on Titan?
But IIRC, Titan is slowly spiraling into Saturn. If I do remember correctly, then any living thing on that moon will be destroyed in a few billion years. The Sun will grow to encompas the Earth’s orbit, destroying all life on the planet. And these things will be repeated all over the universe.
Since I’m unlikely to be around at the end of the universe, it’s not something that bothers me too much. By the way, you might want to read Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Last Question” for a fascinating discussion of this subject. (I think the story is available online, although perhaps not legally.)
Well, consider it our duty then to evolve to such an extent that we can keep some bits of matter to preserve life as we know it, and perhaps also as we don’t know it yet. I mean, dang, we still have a while before the Sun eats us up, a few million, or was it billion? years should do, certainly if we don’t kill ourselves in the meantime or fail to build a good asteroid defense system.
And there was light!
I have to admit, I’ve wondered if AC was creating another universe or just, (as some cosmological theories have it,) feeding the whole of existence back onto its own timeline so that it went through big bang and contraction over and over again, never having anything new happen on any cycle. (shrugs.)
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That story always stuck with me, because I thought the real message was
that Cosmic AC achieved perfect knowledge of the universe and therefore became God. Thus there is no conflict between science and religion, since the more we know about the universe and the way it works, the closer we are to God.
The fact that the universe will end makes me feel indifferent. I just can’t bring myself to care particularly much either about the beginning of or the end of the universe. I just feel that it is so beyond me that it really doesn’t matter. Not that I’m generally against thinking about less than worldly things - I am a philosophy major and spend a lot of time thinking about all kinds of pointless (in some people’s opinions) stuff - the end of the universe just isn’t one of them.
I have to imagine that since the amount of time that will pass is so incredibly vast that we will have found someplace else to inhabit, and a way to get there, or, we’ll be able to create some sort of…artificial world, or self contained placed to live, or something of that sort.
Yes, incredibly ambitious, futuristic, and silly sounding, but knowing that great strides that we have achieved in only that past 100 years, I can only begin to imagine what kind of technology we’ll have in a few million, or even billion years time. It seems logical, to me anyway, that those future generations will be so far advanced and superior, that the survival of the human race, as far as the threat mentioned in the OP, won’t be a problem.
I always liked the idea of a big crunch, it seemed like a nice satisfying sort of end for the universe. The idea of the universe just expanding away into infinity seems a little sad to me. As the Kurgan said “It’s better to burn out than to fade away”.
Still there is always hope that if we survive we may be able to migrate to other universes (if they exist) or if we become powerful enough perhaps even create our own universe to escape into. For a good round up of future possibilities, See Deep Future by Stephen Baxter.
