Expert: Tom Whiting - 11/7/2008

Question
Dear sir, i know less abt this topics .lately some one told me he is for ever as diamonds are for ever .I told him life is not for ever what to do with diamonds....???
He gave me this weird statement : "According to the space, time continuum, wile you have boundaries, I am continues. P.S. read Hubble’s theory if u didn’t get me"....
so i got confused...then i reffer to this time-space ideas on the net but found no such allegations ...what i have to say is there will be a big crunch..so its not for ever....stars are born n they die away..so again its not for ever...or do u have some other meaning for "FOREVER"
in you scientific dictionary.....I know this tpic is just stupid for your level of work..but the thing is he is spreding wrong informations about "spacetime continuum" and that hurts me most...

with regards..
Zakaria

Answer
Hi Zakaria,
The spacetime continuum (not the matter in the Universe, the space
and time) could very well be...forever.  We just don't know.
Depends on what your definition of "forever" is. Do you consider
900 trillion trillion years,.....forever?

One thing we're quite sure of today is that there will be no
"Big Crunch". Recent evidence and studies in the late 1990's, specifically, work on Type Ia supernovae, showed that the Universe's spacial expansion is not only expanding, it's actually ACCELERATING its expansion, thus eliminating the Big Crunch someday.
(Initially, and for the first 6 or 7 billion years, the expansion
was slowing due to gravity, but then the expansion rate over-rode
the available gravitational mass present, and the Universe has been
accelerating it's expansion ever since....faster and faster and
faster.)

So the final outcome of our Universe will be either a "Big Rip" as the space expands faster and faster, or the Universe will suffer a heat death as all the hydrogen fuel is eventually used up, and fused to heavier elements.  {Of course, by then the separation and distance between the galaxy clusters will be enormous, we won't even be able to see thru a telescope other clusters of galaxies like we do today.}

The Big Rip is estimated to occur in several hundred trillion years
as the expansion acceleration rate finally rips apart Galaxy Clusters, then individual galaxies, then stars, then outer planets from the Solar System, then individual planets, and finally rips apart molecules and atoms.  Technically, I guess that puts an end to the spacetime continuum as it will be then expanding at super lightspeed. (Which is allowed; only matter cannot achieve light speed, but space and time are not restricted to lightspeed).
So I guess it, the spacetime continuum, technically is not forever.
Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie PA USA

FOLLOW UP:
For information on the accelerating expansion, see
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/oldest-1a-supernova.html

For even more information, just google "Expansion and Type Ia
supernovae".
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting