Talking about the universe? Oh, I gotta get in on this one...
Paul''s idea isn''t far-fetched. There''s a smooth sheet of microwave radiation coming from all sides of the universe, so there may be something out there pulling us toward it. Personally, I don''t believe that, but you never know. There has to be SOMETHING to make up for the chaos in our universe, because an explosion wouldn''t do it.
Neuro forgot to mention the third (and most likely) possibility:
c) Our universe will expand until it slows to a stop, at which point it will sit forever until it cools down to zero Kelvin and ceases to exist (based on the second law of thermodynamics).
In order for this to happen, the mass of our universe must be equal to the omega ratio (which is roughly one hydrogen atom per cubic meter). The most promising Big-Bang theory thus far suggests that our universe would HAVE to meet this requirement, which means we''ll slow to a stop.
Neuro posed the interesting question, "What the hell is our universe expanding into?" Who knows? Who will ever know? Most likely our star system will cease to exist long before the universe is over. It''s possible there are other universes like ours far away. Maybe someday we''ll master transporting matter through quantum foam. Then we can go there and find out.
![](smile.gif)
Just more theories. Served with coffee and crumpets.