Space
Collapse of the Universe is Closer Than Before: How the World May End
Catherine Griffin
First Posted: Dec 13, 2013 07:43 AM EST
It's the end of the universe as we know it--sort of. Physicists have long predicted that the universe may one day collapse and that everything within it will be compressed into a small, hard ball. Now, new calculations confirm this prediction and shows that the risk of collapse is actually greater than expected.
Sooner or later, a radical shift in the forces of the universe will cause every little particle to become extremely heavy--millions of billions of times heavier than it is now. This, in turn, will have disastrous consequences; the new weight will squeeze all material into a small, superhot and super heavy ball as the universe as we know it ceases to exist.
This particularly violent process is called a phase transition. It's similar to what happens when water turns to steam or a magnet heats up and loses its magnetization. The phase transition in the universe will occur if a bubble is created where the Higgs-field associated with the Higgs-particle reaches a different value than the rest of the universe.
"Many theories and calculations predict such a phase transition-but there have been some uncertainties in the previous calculations," said Jens Frederik Colding Krog, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Now we have performed more precise calculations, and we see two things: Yes, the universe will probably collapse, and: A collapse is even more likely than the old calculations predicted."
In order to make these new calculations, the researchers looked at three of the main equations that underlie the prediction of a phase change. These are about the so-called beta functions, which determine the strength of interactions between, for example, light particles and electrons as well as Higgs bosons and quarks.
Yet the theory of phase transition is not the only theory that predicts a collapse of the universe. There's also the so-called Big Crunch theory. This theory is based on the Big Bang, which is the theory of the formation of the universe. After the Big Bang, all material was ejected into the universe from one small area and this expansion is still happening. At some point, though, the expansion will stop and all the material will again begin to attract to each other. Eventually, it will all emerge into a small area again in the Big Crunch.
Yet this new research shows that the universe's expansion is accelerating. This means that there's no reason to expect a collapse and that the Big Crunch will probably not happen.
The findings reveal a little bit more about the theory concerning the end of the universe. Yet there's no guarantee that this collapse will happen. It's possible that the phase change will not occur and the universe will go on as it is.
The findings are published in the Journal of High Energy Physics.
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NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone
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First Posted: Dec 13, 2013 07:43 AM EST
It's the end of the universe as we know it--sort of. Physicists have long predicted that the universe may one day collapse and that everything within it will be compressed into a small, hard ball. Now, new calculations confirm this prediction and shows that the risk of collapse is actually greater than expected.
Sooner or later, a radical shift in the forces of the universe will cause every little particle to become extremely heavy--millions of billions of times heavier than it is now. This, in turn, will have disastrous consequences; the new weight will squeeze all material into a small, superhot and super heavy ball as the universe as we know it ceases to exist.
This particularly violent process is called a phase transition. It's similar to what happens when water turns to steam or a magnet heats up and loses its magnetization. The phase transition in the universe will occur if a bubble is created where the Higgs-field associated with the Higgs-particle reaches a different value than the rest of the universe.
"Many theories and calculations predict such a phase transition-but there have been some uncertainties in the previous calculations," said Jens Frederik Colding Krog, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Now we have performed more precise calculations, and we see two things: Yes, the universe will probably collapse, and: A collapse is even more likely than the old calculations predicted."
In order to make these new calculations, the researchers looked at three of the main equations that underlie the prediction of a phase change. These are about the so-called beta functions, which determine the strength of interactions between, for example, light particles and electrons as well as Higgs bosons and quarks.
Yet the theory of phase transition is not the only theory that predicts a collapse of the universe. There's also the so-called Big Crunch theory. This theory is based on the Big Bang, which is the theory of the formation of the universe. After the Big Bang, all material was ejected into the universe from one small area and this expansion is still happening. At some point, though, the expansion will stop and all the material will again begin to attract to each other. Eventually, it will all emerge into a small area again in the Big Crunch.
Yet this new research shows that the universe's expansion is accelerating. This means that there's no reason to expect a collapse and that the Big Crunch will probably not happen.
The findings reveal a little bit more about the theory concerning the end of the universe. Yet there's no guarantee that this collapse will happen. It's possible that the phase change will not occur and the universe will go on as it is.
The findings are published in the Journal of High Energy Physics.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone