Question about the "Big Rip"?

Question

When this "Big Rip" actually occurs, will it be the end of our Universe or the beginning of a new one or several?

If everything reaches a point through expansion where all matter is not influenced by any further mutual gravity from other matter - then effectively what is left just continues to drift forever or will it stop expanding and eventually collapse back in on itself creating a new Universe?

In essence repeating this over and over - never ending

Answer 1

I think we are not the last universe and not the first. Also, there is a theory called the "Big Crunch". All the matter in the universe will be sucked back up and there will be another "Big Bang" etc. There are so many predictions you might as well make your own.

Some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/big_rip_030306.html

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/the_universe/Crunch.html

Answer 2

Hey, this stuff is all new and late-breaking. The conjecture of the "Big Rip" is a quick and dirty way of accountingg for the ultimate fate of a universe that reaches some, as yet unfathomed, limit to its size and speed of expansion. We got time. 50 billion years to figure it out. It's a take-home problem. Get on it.

Your question is ahead of itself.

We still have to figure out what the heck dark matter and dark energy are first.

Answer 3

The "Big Rip" (or is it Big R.I.P.?) is merely a theory. It's more a matter of 'if', not 'when'.

But the way in which it was described was that all matter in the universe would simply cease to exist. Since the universe itself would literally 'pop', everything that the universe is composed of would probably just go 'pop' too.

Answer 4

The bid rip has no scientific basis; some hot shot invented it over too many beers. There's not even a definition of it let alone conjecture of what could happen.