Stephen Hawking once said, "The origin of the universe is a bit like the old question like which came first, the chicken, or the egg.¡±?
We have various theories explaining the origin of the universe including steady-state theory, the big bang theory.
The cosmos began 13.7 billion years ago with the big bang and a fraction of a second after the beginning, the universe was a hot, formless soup of the most elementary particles, quarks and leptons.?
With the expansion, it cooled and layered structure of neutrons, protons, atomic nuclei, atoms, stars, galaxies and finally superclusters developed.?
Many of us are aware of the ideas that how it started but there are few predictions on the death of the universe as well. Several scientists have given theories explaining the end of the Universe.
Heat death theory was given by German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz in 1856. He predicted that the universe is dying. The premise of the prediction was the law of thermodynamics.?
Simply put, in thermodynamics, energy is continuously being transferred through objects in the form of work or heat. Now, heat death will take place when all energy (heat) is supposedly evenly distributed throughout the universe and place for it go.?
According to the physicist, when the universe will reach a state of maximum entropy, the phenomena will occur. In simple terms, it occurs when all available energy (like from a hot source) has moved to places of less energy (to colder sources).
With this outcome, work cannot be extracted from the universe anymore and as heat ceases to flow and no more work can be acquired from heat transfer. And that very particular time will lead to death specifically for humankind.?
Many cosmological observations indicate the continuous expansion of the universe and it will continue forever. Universe gets cooler as it expands and with this observation one day it will become too cold to sustain life. This future scenario is known as a big freeze.
First published in 2003, the big rip is a cosmological hypothesis that talks about the ultimate fate of the cosmos, in which the matter of the universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, are progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future.
Robert Caldwell, Dartmouth University, emphasised the possibility of theory and said that ¡°the expansion becomes so fast that it literally rips apart all bound objects.¡± He elaborates that the mysterious force called ¡°dark energy¡± or repulsive gravity drives the universe and is falling apart.?
As galaxies are moving further from us and the rate of expansion is itself accelerating. With unchecked increasing acceleration comes every 100 yards and at last every foot and finally, everything explodes.
In this theory, the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately ending as a black hole singularity. While the early universe was highly uniform, a contracting universe would become increasingly clumped and eventually all matter would collapse into black holes, which would combine to produce a unified black hole or big crunch singularity.
However, critics argue that many theories lack empirical testability and are outside the methodology of scientific investigation to confirm or reject.?
Well! These are only theories or will they become reality is a matter of time. But, they do scare us how brutally the universe can end what we see today.
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