Astrophysicists have identified three possible fates for the universe, one is called the Big Crunch, where gravity takes over and begins to pull the cosmos back, compressing to one point. Another is the Big Rip, where the accelerative forces associated with Dark Energy causes it to expand at an every increasing rate until the galaxies, stars, planets, atoms and space itself is ripped apart. Another popular scenario is called the Big Freeze in which the universe’s expansion is not great enough for it to be ripped apart. Instead it will continue to expand, carrying everything we see today over the cosmic horizon where they will be so far away, that their light cannot reach us. The sky will be dark and as all of the stars begin to go out, the universe will grow, cold and lifeless.
However as was shown in the article “Why the Big Rip cannot happen” June 15. 2015 there are several inconsistencies in that theoretical model which makes it extremely unlikely.
The most obvious is that it violates one of most treasured laws of science that of the law of conservation of mass/energy.
That law tells us that the kinetic energy of the universe’s energy/mass cannot exceed its.combined total. However that is exactly what would have to happen for the Big Rip to occur.
For example for a rocket to escape or be “Rip” from the earth’s gravitational influence one must provide it with more kinetic energy than the gravitational potential of its energy/mass.
Similarly for the universe to be “Rip” apart one would have to provide its components with enough kinetic energy to overcome the total gravitational potential of its energy/mass.
However as was just mentioned the law of conservation energy/mass tells us that since by definition the universe is a closed system the kinetic energy of the its components cannot exceed the total energy of its gravitational components.
In other words if we are to assume that the universe will be Rip apart by Dark Energy we must also assume that energy/mass can be created and that the law of conservation or energy/mass is invalid.
Yet there is also an inconsistency with the assumption that universe would continue to expand indefinitely resulting in what has come to be called the Big Freeze.
This inconsistency revolves around the fact that the equation E=mc^2 which defines the equivalence between mass and energy in an environment tells us that, because of it, the kinetic energy associated with the universe’s expansion also possess the gravitational potential associated with mass while the law of conservation of energy/mass tells us that at as the universe expands and cools the gravitational potential of the kinetic energy loss associated with that cooling must be returned to the universe. Granted it would be disturbed or deluded by a factor of c^2 however it would still increase the total gravitational potential of the universe’s energy/mass.
Yet this means as the universe cools the total gravitational potential of its energy/mass must increase. Therefore at some point in time its gravitation potential will increase to the point where it will be greater than the kinetic energy associated with its expansion resulting in it entering a contraction phase because it is decrease while the other is increasing.
There can be no other conclusion if one accepts the validity of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and the law of conservation energy/mass.
As was mentioned earlier the article “Why the Big Rip cannot happen” June 15. 2015 showed why the assumption that Dark Energy would “rip” apart the universe is untenable if one assumes the validity of the law of conservation of energy/mass while the other possible end to our universe or the big freeze is also ruled out for the reasons stated above.
However that means the only viable option for the end our universe is the big crunch if the currently accepted laws of physics eliminates the Big Freeze and the Big Rip because those same laws tell us as was just shown the total gravitation potential of the universe must increase as it expands and cools approaching a maximum value at absolute “0” while at the same time the kinetic energy of its expansive components must decrease. Therefore, at some point in time, the universe will enter a contractive phase because the total gravitational potential will eventually exceed the kinetic energy of its expansion. This is would be true as mentioned earlier even though the gravitational potential of its Kinetic energy components would be disturbed or diluted by a factor of c^2.
Therefore at that point, in time the universe will have to enter a contractive phase.
In other words the only one of the three options our universe has to end it life that is supported by today’s scientific understanding of its evolutionary mechanism is the Big Crunch
Later Jeff
Copyright 2015 Jeffrey O’Callaghan