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10 jul 06 "Do you believe in the 'Big Bang Theory?' If so, what is the universe expanding into?" yes, but i have some problems with the language being used. the evidence for a super-compact object disseminating seems pretty good (expanding universe, as you mentioned in 0000055.html), but i've always felt "big bang" implied that the "cosmic egg" (not sure if this is still talked about) was just sitting around, egg-like, for aeons, and then finally one day decided to explode. when i was somewhere between 10 and 13, and still trying to resolve monotheism and fact, i suggested, excitedly to my dad, that god had created the cosmic egg. i don't think he offered back his opinion, except perhaps in the form of a smile and "maybe so!". will the universe stop expanding and start contracting at some point? to my (severely) limited knowledge, there aren't any examples of this sort of thing going on. ie, a grenade exploding, then re-integrating after all the blown-up bits settle. so, if a universe can't re-collapse into the egg-like superdense wad that it birthed 12 billion years ago (unless we're totally wrong about the age of the universe -- science has a point where it becomes more philosophy than science, and a lot of cosmology begins to dip its toes into that water), then how did the original "cosmic egg" come into being, and what's going to happen to this expanding universe? i think the first is something funny like the cosmic egg being the manifestation of a blackhole in another universe. as far as our universe's fate goes, entropic "heat death" is the place for it -- expanding into nothing, until neutrinos and such are approaching infintely far apart. death. but, of course, there are other universes sitting around, so no biggie. i have to admit that i'm just quoting the party line on "heat death", but it sounds reasonable to me. i think the term "universe" is a little misleading, considering the possibility of the existence of lots of them. since "universe" means "all that is", if it turns out it isn't "all that is", we need a new term for "all that is". maybe just All That Is? |
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