re: #414 Racer X

OK. So the universe is a trillion times larger than I can imagine it to be. Now picture the universe as constantly expanding (which it is). It had to have started off somehow - Big Bang perhaps.

Yes, that observation was what kicked off the Big Bang (and Steady State) theories. Further observation has nailed down a more exact age of the universe.

Now a trillion years from now what if the universe stops expanding and starts contracting? Then a trillion million years from now collapses into the opposite of a big bang - a Big Suck - due to the sheer volume of dark matter and black holes crashing in on each other.

Then immediately a Big Bang!

And we start all over again.

You’re talking about a spherical-curvature manifold, in which time and space is bounded.

But I think current trends in astrophysics (which I haven’t kept up with, extrasolar planets are more my thing) point toward a “flat” universe whereby the stars will keep expanding, but more and more slowly, into eternity as the stars all explode and/or die out.