(July 8, 2017 at 8:48 am)Brian37 Wrote:(June 17, 2017 at 12:32 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: static universes (ones that neither expand nor contractor) are not stable, so it's one or the other. At least in regards to having a universe with beings inside to contemplate WTF is going on.
atoms are small and sturdy enough regardless of when they form the expansion will not inflate them (disregarding for the moment some theoretical work that might change that in a distant epoch of this universe)
as a whole, and in isolation, galaxies are stable for VERY long time periods, HOWEVER, as, for instance, our sun orbits our galaxy, it is radiating gravitational energy, and it's orbit is contracting excruciatingly slowly. Wait long enough and if nothing else intervenes, we are going to be absorbed into the central black hole, or something else between here and there.
the long term (until the sun burns out) stability of our solar system is in a slight amount of question. The long term (billions of years) stability of the planet Mercury's orbit is slighty suspect, and it might, if we wait long enough, experience a cranking up of it's orbital eccentricity and collide with Venus, or, mush less likely, earth.
Additionally, IIRC, in some billions of years, it is expected earth might achieve an orbital resonance with Saturn. I don't recall what happens then other than it would be unpleasant.
Neil Degrasse Tyson held a scientist think tank gab fest a few years ago and had not only Lawrence Krauss on but also a lady M-Theorist on that panel too. If I am remembering it correctly, according to her, everything, no mater what, multiverse, parallel universes, whatever, is simply one giant bubbling oscillation that will evaporate back to zero or collapse back to zero. But, I have to admit, I watched it long ago and cant seem to find it now. Krauss definitely says something can arise out of nothing.
I think there is a indefinite cycle, but not a cognitive caused cycle. My take is that "all this" oscillates from off to on back to off to on ect ect ect.
Infinite cycle would seem to me to contradict the second law of thermal dynamics. By the second law the entropy within each cycle must continuously increase, and the entropy of the next cycle must begin at a level equal to or higher than the highest ever attained in the immediately preceding cycle. This suggest even if the cycle s continue indefinitely, there is only a limited number of cycles in which life or anything we fine familiar can exist. Afterwards that phase of eternally cycling universe will end forever.
Which also begs the question, what were the cyclic universe doing before it first attained a phase where life can exist in a universe?
