Time likely to end within 5 billion years, physicists calculate.

I just posted this in a thread of mine but did a seach and noticed it hadn't been posted on ATS before. I find it strange because 5 billion years isn't that large a time (period) on the Cosmic clock.

As far as astrophysicists can tell, the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, and will likely continue to do so indefinitely. But now some physicists are saying that this theory, called eternal inflation, and its implication that time is endless pose a problem for scientists calculating the probability of any event occurring. In a recent paper, they calculate that time is likely to end within the next 5 billion years due to some type of catastrophe that no one alive at the time will witness.

www.physorg.com...

Better read this quick though as the theory also permits that time could stop before you even finish this thread. So make sure your smiling your don't wanna be stuck with that face forever.

ALS

I'll bring the beer for the going away party

reply to post by Rexamus


It the end of Miller Time!



ALS

I don't see how they can predict an event that's going to happen in 5 billion year that will stop time .

reply to post by ALOSTSOUL


Dont worry about it, it is beyond our comprehension. time really doesnt exist at all its more like a grid that all exists at the same time, our time is just where we are relative to everything else. But as far as the universe it is expanding at a faster rate than anyone can imagine, and one day the expanding energies will stop and the contracting ones will pull the universe all back together again in as big of an eraser tip, and then it will expand again, and then contract and so on so forth forever...just my belief anyways

reply to post by brainswippin


Sorry, link is up now.

ALS

reply to post by ALOSTSOUL


Challenge Accepted!

reply to post by brainswippin


They have no difficulty predicting the weather so I don't see how a prediction 5 billion years in the future could be wrong.

reply to post by allareone


But what if the expansion doesn't stop? At the moment Dark energy is greatly outweighing gravity and the math shows no sighs of that its changing anytime soon.

ALS

Oh sure, Poor Harold Camping predicts the end of time a little sooner and everyone calls him a religious nut bag, but some astrophysicists add a few billion years to the equation and suddenly its a "theory".

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
Oh sure, Poor Harold Camping predicts the end of time a little sooner and everyone calls him a religious nut bag, but some astrophysicists add a few billion years to the equation and suddenly its a "theory".

One has various experiments and research backing it up, the other is the prophecies of a senile old man through his interpretation of a fairy tale book.

GG troll

reply to post by ALOSTSOUL


If time is a function of the expanding universe, surely the boundary conditions to time would also be expanding at the same rate.

Ie: the present boundary to time may be at the 3.x billion year mark, but in the intervening periods, all space-time would have expanded, dragging the boundary conditions with it.

I think that the theorists here are thinking too linearly.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Well the Earth is going to end in 5 billion years (expansion of the Sun) so what does it matter if time does to.

ALS

If humanity manages to survive the next cataclysm facing this planet(which will come in the next 10-15k years) and manages to spread to other planets and solar systems, then it's likely that at least a part of humanity is able to find out how to travel to another "star explosion" (as I like to call the big bang), I believe that our "universe" is just a part of an ocean of chaos where energy condenses into dots of unimaginable strength(think of a star) and when they go "super nova" a universe is born.

im willing to bet physicist don't know half as much as they wantus to htink

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


But the difference is its backed up by real facts, and im sure that they are not going to start telling people to sell thier houses and donate thier live savings equaling over 100 million pounds to put up huge billboards promoting the end of time... in 5 billion years. :\

Originally posted by biggmoneyme
im willing to bet physicist don't know half as much as they wantus to htink

Even if they had revealed all they know you should never base your "ideology" on science. Science never knows the answer, it knows what is currently known. Most of science is irrelevant to your every day life. Community, family and imagination are your createst assets in life. As Einstein said, the greatest measure of intelligence is your imagination.

Without imagination knowledge is useless.

Originally posted by DeyTookErJeobs
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

But the difference is its backed up by real facts, and im sure that they are not going to start telling people to sell thier houses and donate thier live savings equaling over 100 million pounds to put up huge billboards promoting the end of time... in 5 billion years. :\

If you have to explain a joke it probably really wasn't all that funny to begin with. At the time I thought it was funny...guess you had to be there.

Infinite existences cannot end as they never began, nor can they change. Change shall exist which is why the infinite existences of space and time is filled with finite existences like matter, energy, and consciousness.

Makes sense. 5 billions years is about right. Doesn't make Einstein roll in his grave. Is acceptable.

That's the problem.

So I propose that it ends in 1 million years or that it never existed so it cannot stop.

If there's harsh condemnation of my prediction then I will have succeeded.