Will the expansion of the universe eventually change physics and chemistry?

Question

If the universe is expanding, then surely the bonds in the molecules that make up my body are also expanding? Could this eventually change their behaviour, making life impossible?

Answer 1

Fermi of Borg is NEARLY correct.

However, the rate of expansion is accelerating, so eventually, the speed of expansion WILL reach a point where planets will start to drift apart, and then molecules, then atoms, until the universe is nothing but a cooling and near-infinitely quickly expanding universe.

This is called the 'big rip' and is the best guess physicists have of the end of the unvierse based on what we currently know.

Answer 2

You are misunderstanding our role in the expansion. Here's a better mental picture to use.

Imagine you have three magnets on a rubber sheet. Two are right next to each other and are 'stuck' in each other's magnetics fields. We'll call those magnets Terra and Luna. The third is some distance away on the sheet, not appreciably affected by the other fields. We'll call that Alpha Centauri.

Now, if you start pulling on the ends of the rubber sheet and stretching it out, what do you expect to happen? Unless you stretch it ridiculously fast or the magnetic fields are ridiculously weak, Terra and Luna are going to stay stuck together just as before. Alpha Centauri, on the other hand, is going to be pulled away from both the other magnets and seem to get further away.

That is what we have in the expanding universe. The fact that nobody has noticed this expansion over thousands of years suggests that it is nowhere near strong enough to effect chemistry, biology, or most of the local systems that we are quite familiar with. It DOES affect physics, but only on the cosmological scale, and so far as current theories go it will affect them in the future no more than it has affected them in the past.

On the other hand, the expansion of the universe may bode poorly for life for other reasons. Energy is contantly leaving and not really coming back in. Given that there is a finite amount of energy in the universe, it seems only a matter of time before it is spread too diffusely to permit the continued existance of much of anything. Unless some new source is discovered somewhere (other universes? vacuum energy? who knows!).

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

Yes the universe may keep expanding forever. The molecules i our body will break down to their very smallest parts. There will be no light , life, or anything else of note.

No one knows for sure if this will happen. And we will be long dead by then. The universe seems to be balanced on the edge of forever expanding, or stopping and start contracting

Answer 4

I don't know if your hypothesis of your molecular bonds expanding is correct. I'd have to look at you through an electron microscope and determine your redshift to know for sure.

I don't think this is the case. If we were expanding at the same rate the universe is expanding, then we wouldn't detect redshifts as other galaxies move further away from us.

Answer 5

The molecular bonds will stay the same. The problem is that we will expand into background radiation as there will be no more condensed energy to make matter.

Answer 6

I heard the speed of light is slowing down ...might be a loads of balls though :)

Answer 7

No reason to believe that.
Th

Answer 8

shouldn't think so