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How the universe will end is an ongoing debate among cosmologists, and results vary depending on specific theories.
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A new paper analyzes the end of the universe in relation to a theory known as “holographic dark matter,” in which gravity and space form a quantum illusion of our true 2D reality.
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The study reveals that, in this scenario, the universe would eventually stop and disintegrate, a process these scientists call the “long freeze.”
All good things must come to an end, and that includes universe. But exactly how Whether the end will come is a long-running debate among cosmologists, who propose theories with terrifying nicknames such as “great freeze” or “great crisis.” Today, two American and Indian scientists have another idea that arouses the same feeling of concern: the “long freeze”.
The idea comes from a theory known as “holographic dark energy”, which attempts to explain the mysteries of quantum gravity. This theory postulates that the force of gravity is actually a hologram of a lower dimensional reality. In other words, our known universe is actually in two dimensionsbut quantum forces create the illusion gravity and 3D space. This holographic principle is also a feature of theoretical frameworks like string theory.
Dark energy This is the force that many cosmologists believe is responsible for the expansion of the universe. Although decades have passed since its first “discovery”, no scientist has ever directly observed dark energy (if they had, you would have certainly heard of it). Dark energy makes up about 70% of everything in the universe, and as it expands, its density decreases. In this new non-peer-reviewed article, published on the preprint server arXivscientists decided to follow this holographic theory of dark matter to its conclusion and calculate how the universe would end if its theoretical assumptions were true.
In this scenario, as dark energy dissipates throughout the universe, dark matter would also dissipate, and the universe would eventually come to a halt, according to Live Science. This is the “long freeze” – a period of time during which the expansion of the universe would have completely stopped and the absence of new energy sources would cause existing stars to slowly disappear. According to most cosmologists, the last “normal” structures of matter would be black holesbut eventually, even these space-time monstrosities would meet their ultimate end.
The “long freeze” is distinct from another cosmological end state known as the “big freeze”, which also enters a state of cascading entropy. However, the “long freeze” continues to expand, while the “long freeze” takes a finite shape after it stops expanding. When it comes to end-time oblivion of the universe, this may all sound a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanicbut the thought experiment in this article helps test possible cosmological theories and understand their final conclusions.
Fortunately for us, the Stellar era– that is, the era of star creation in the universe – is not expected to end for about 100 trillion years. Even then, it will be followed by the Degenerate Era and the Black Hole Era, the latter of which is estimated to occur about 10 years later. duodecillion to 1 cut it out after the Big Bang.
In other words, the universe still has some life left in her.
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