if there is a big crunch, will the light that has been travelling at light speed away from all the stars be...

Question

dragged into the big crunch...or will the light continue on..even as the physical universe collapses inward?

i got to thinking about this when musing that some light we see today has been travelling millions or billion years to get here.

so, the light from the stars that are furthest out on the explosive perimeter must have travelled billions of light years away from their own star of origin into the blackness of [i hesitate to use the word space...because what is or isnt it, that is beyond that travelling explosive frontier, that the big bang is exploding outwards into?]

Answer 1

This question is based on the flawed, though understandable, premise that there is both a center and an edge to the universe. There is not.

According the hypothesis in which there is sufficient mass in the universe for its gravity to give space a positive curvature, flying in the same direction for trillions of trillions of years will deliver you to the same point you left off. Imagine a 2-Dimensional universe, curved into the shape of a sphere. A "flat lander" in this universe could travel onwards for years and wind up back where he started without changing direction. He has no concept of the third spatial dimension his universe is curved in. Now scale that up to three dimensions.

There is also no actual center. Every point in the universe is accelerating away from every other point, so everywhere could be said to e the center. The Big Bang is no detonation, like a grenade (which also puts to death the old order-disorder qualm with the theory). It could be said to be an explosion, but this is generally a reference to the much more impressive inflation that occurred less than a second after the Big Bang, a mind-bogglingly fast expansion, scaling up from millimeters to light years. But there is no edge, and "nothing" to exist in, since the only space that there is, the only dimensions, are what it makes as it goes. Or rather, it started out with the same amount, it is just being "stretched" and expanded. The proverbial outside of the universe has no dimensions, up down, left or right, to actually exist in.

Answer 2

If someone made all of space, and also endowed the universe with the natural laws it has always had, then well...I suppose that entity WOULD have the power to make a donkey talk. But I don't see any evidence to support the idea that space was created by a mind. Minds are created by the universe, not the other way around. A mind is an entity that arises when an animal has a nervous system and a brain. It's not something that magically exists outside of spacetime. And anyway, let me get this straight. Are you saying you believe in talking donkeys? HAHA. Let me tell you something. If a guy created the entire universe, do you think he could make a Mewtwo as well? K then. Mewtwo exists somewhere in the universe. Prove me wrong. See how ridiculous your line of reasoning is? By your logic, ANYTHING is believable if you just say that an all-powerful being did it.

Answer 3

Did a bit of checking using pen and paper on the collapse/continued expansion models.. not well versed in maths or comology, relativity, physics etc..but
assume grav potent of Universe is G*M*m/R=m*v^2/2 energy of particle at the edge of universe
and v=R*H where R=rad universe and H=Hubble const, and M=mass of universe
then using M=4/3*piR^3*rho
gives rho= 3*H^2/8*pi*G gives critical density. If this is larger than about 10^-28Kg/m3 apparently assuming we can find sufficient dark matter to make up the deficit, then the universe will 'crunch'. if this was the case then all your light energy would escape in2 the 'abyss' and the next cycle of a rebounding universe would contain less energy and possibly different values for the physical constants. Were these cycles repeated we would get an damped oscillating universe due to this energy escape.

Answer 4

Ha, Ha... I see that in your musing you have dropped a few straws, haven't you???

Light that was emitted by a star, or various stars is traveling somewhere and will continue to travel there regardless of anything except collision with an object which blocks its path.
That is how light works.

Extensive contemplation of the end of everything and beyond is futile and pointless because it will happen after all of us, and our children's children are all dead and gone. No one will be alive then to come back here and tell us what happened, and why we missed getting the story (prediction) correct. All of them will be dead also, having been fried by the Sun's monster expansion phase about 4 or 5 Billion years from now.

Answer 5

Don't worry about it - because we are heading for a Big Freeze - The temperature was the hottest at the moment of the Big Bang. The universe has been expanding and cooling ever since. When it expands and cools toward infinity, there will be a Big Freeze. Whether that point is infinitely large and absolute zero remains a question. Things may just tend toward that point forever (Which is what I think, everything will expand and cool forever)

Answer 6

If the universe was to end with a big crunch, it would draw the light back in as well.

At the present time the rate of expansion of our universe is increasing. So no big crunch appears to be in our future.

Bullet makes an excellent point concerning the topology of the universe.

Answer 7

All we know right now is that there are places in the known Universe that have collapsed to a size and density that do not allow light to escape. Whether this is a microcosm of a big crunch is not known.

Answer 8

I once read an article in a science magazine in which it stated that if the 'Big Crunch' ever occurred then that everything,including time,would be reversed,so that you would die first,then grow young,then finally be born!

Answer 9

Yes. Everything will get eaten. But the jury is very much still out as to whether this will occur.

Answer 10

There's an old saying, that "there's no such thing as a stupid question". You have just proven it to be wrong!