Assuming the universe keeps expanding, space becomes increasingly more empty. Stars burn out, the rate of new stars forming is decreasing, Hawking showed us how even enormously large black holes can eventually 'evaporate', and the universal expansion continues. The time scales are staggering (really) but the universe is dissipating. Whatever someone's definition of 'empty' is, the universe will eventually reach it, and continue on into even emptier and emptier states.
The expansion of the universe also robs photons of their energy. They become weaker, and weaker as the eons accumulate. Eventually you get to a state where a volume the size of the universe today contains but a single, vanishingly weak photon, and the expansion goes on and on from there.
Also, at these low densities, and profoundly dissipated energy, Heisenberg's little caveat takes hold and any particle that is left will 'dissipate' too. As something cools, it's energy is more and more precisely known, that is, as the temperature approaches absolute zero, recall zero is an extremely precise number. Therefore, as the item's energy becomes more and more precise, it's location becomes more and more vague. The particle, when cold enough, and the universe will evolve to that point, and orders and orders of magnitude further and further, will essentially erase itself over a larger and larger volume. These volumes grow without limit as the universe gets enormously larger, colder, and emptier.
Even time starts to malfunction under these conditions, there being less and less of anything left for it to impinge upon. It's progression becomes immeasurable and erratic . . .
The exact opposite of a Big Bang, an ultimately unending thinning out, cooling off, super colossal expansion, and time fails, kind of a downbeat and boring end.
And if one looks upon such a long term burnout from the perspective of 'infinity', the universe isn't even a blip, it's nothing, because, on average, it averages out to, from that infinite viewpoint, absolutely nothing.
Really.
The expansion of the universe also robs photons of their energy. They become weaker, and weaker as the eons accumulate. Eventually you get to a state where a volume the size of the universe today contains but a single, vanishingly weak photon, and the expansion goes on and on from there.
Also, at these low densities, and profoundly dissipated energy, Heisenberg's little caveat takes hold and any particle that is left will 'dissipate' too. As something cools, it's energy is more and more precisely known, that is, as the temperature approaches absolute zero, recall zero is an extremely precise number. Therefore, as the item's energy becomes more and more precise, it's location becomes more and more vague. The particle, when cold enough, and the universe will evolve to that point, and orders and orders of magnitude further and further, will essentially erase itself over a larger and larger volume. These volumes grow without limit as the universe gets enormously larger, colder, and emptier.
Even time starts to malfunction under these conditions, there being less and less of anything left for it to impinge upon. It's progression becomes immeasurable and erratic . . .
The exact opposite of a Big Bang, an ultimately unending thinning out, cooling off, super colossal expansion, and time fails, kind of a downbeat and boring end.
And if one looks upon such a long term burnout from the perspective of 'infinity', the universe isn't even a blip, it's nothing, because, on average, it averages out to, from that infinite viewpoint, absolutely nothing.
Really.
