What happens when our universe finally does run away? since it has been determined to be a "runaway universe"

Question

those are some excellent answers and i love the circle theory that ray has... it would actually fit into y spiritual beliefs as well as my scientific/biological ones. i would love more answers though, ur all making me think!!!! :)

Answer 1

Well, if you believe in the multi-verse theory, then you could theoretically escape from your universe. The multiverse theory says that there are multiple universes, and so if ours' ends, that doesn't mean that they all end.  

Answer 2

Well, to my knowlege no-one knows whether the universe is closed, open, or flat. However, if it does continue to expand forever, the fate is pretty grim and is termed heat death:

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

On a somewhat related note, this is an interesting short story about the death of the universe:

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.ht...

Answer 3

Until relatively recently, it was thought that the universe will eventually be pulled back in on itself by it's own gravity...but when attempting to determine the speed of this occurrence, it was discovered that the opposite is the case; it's expanding at an accelerating rate with no end in sight.

Eventually all stars will die, their leftovers spawning new generations of lesser stars with shorter life spans.  After some time, all of the smaller elements used in fusion by the stars will have been transformed into larger ones incapable of fueling fusion reaction.  Meaning:  eventually there will be no more stars at all.  It will be a slow death, but this seems to be the fate of our universe.

There are a lot of theories as to what happens next, but this one's my favorite:  What we see as "dark matter" is actually matter for an alternate universe...one that is being born as ours dies.  This alternate universe is the loop in a cycle.  The new "dark matter" universe will live out it's life-cycle just as ours did...expanding at an increasing rate  due to our matter acting as it's "dark matter".  Eventually it will fade out as ours did, and thus bring the circle back to where our universe began...a never-ending circle.

Answer 4

the Gov will put a tax on it

Answer 5

I believe that God created ALL things.He had no beginning and no end to His existence.With that in mind,He created the universe and He alone can destroy it.I believe the universe is indifinite and it has no beginning or end just like God who is the only one that knows its final outcome

Answer 6

ill take you through the steps of the big rip theory.

first dark energy accelerates the universe so much that other galaxies begin to disappear beyond our visible part of the universe. then stars start flying away from galaxies. then planets from stars, moons from planets. eventually matter is sped up to such high speeds that molecules can no longer exist, because the electrons are ripped off of the atoms. were left with a haze of ions and electrons. then the residual nuclear force that holds together the nucleus of an atom fails, and we are left with nucleons and electrons. eventually the strong nuclear force fails, the nucleons fly apart. now we are left with a haze of elementary particles. the only bodies left in existence are black holes, in which all of those things have already happened. eventually hawking radiation causes the black holes to radiate away in hundreds of billions of years.

so in the end, we are left with just a haze of elementary particles. ill list them for the h**l of it. up, down, charm, strange, top, bottom quarks, electrons, muons, taus, electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos, tau neutrinos, photons, gluons, W+/- bosons, Z bosons, higgs bosons.

muons, taus, and charm/strange/top/bottom quarks would all decay into lighter particles. W+/- and Z bosons would also decay. down quarks might decay. so we are left with neutrinos, electrons, photons, gluons, higgs, and up quarks.

but this is speculative. we know that the universe will not contract, we dont know if it will "runaway". that depends on the nature of dark energy. we know literally nothing about dark energy, other than that it is energy.

EDIT: a "runaway" universe is different than a universe that just doesnt contract. if our universe doesnt contract, it will end anticlimactically. it will end in heat death, which is basically just stars burning out and black holes evaporating. the difference between heat death and the big rip is this. in heat death the universe just slows down, but does not contract. in the big rip the universe speeds up due to dark energy.