Context
Throughout senior year, I have navigated many new ideas and thoughts. Now, for my Capstone project, I had to choose one thing to focus on to research and write about. This was a difficult task, but eventually I chose to focus on how our universe will end. Below is my final draft, a link to a video of me reading my final draft out loud, my cover letter, and my works cited. There are also additional reflections about the process below. Enjoy!
Cover Letter: The "Big End of Our Universe
Thanks to my astronomy class last semester, I’ve spent a lot of time this year thinking about our universe. How it formed, how it works, but most of all, how it will end. This last question is what my thoughts circled around-- no matter what I was thinking, this is where my mind would end up. I have always had a tendency to wonder about this sort of thing, the end of the universe that is, but I never had the chance or the time to deeply research it. So when we first started talking about Capstone, I knew I wanted to do something about this particular topic. At first there were too many ideas in my head, and I wanted to incorporate everything. I had so many questions: what’s the relationship between time and our universe, how many universes are there, what is the idea of a multiverse, what lies beyond our universe, is there even a beyond our universe, what will come after our universe? But I couldn’t possibly write this all in one paper, so I settled on the big idea that I constantly came back to: how will our universe end? “Settled” doesn’t even seem to be the right word because the end of the universe is still quite a large idea to tackle in a certain amount of words, but I wanted to try. This paper was a bit difficult to write since I wanted to narrow down on specifics and get into details about the possibilities of the end, while trying to prove which one I believed and think my readers should believe is most likely, but I had such a great time learning and writing about these possibilities.
The "Big" End of Our Universe
Have you ever thought about how the universe will end? I’m sure it’s crossed your mind at some point, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and maybe you’ve dug deeper into your curiosity, or maybe you just brushed it off because you know it’s not happening anytime soon, so you shouldn’t worry about it. Well, true you probably don’t need to worry about it on an individual scale, but worry about it in the way that you should: universally. This is your universe that you’re living in right now, and although it might not seem like it, it’s on its way to the end, most likely because of something called the Heat Death or the “Big Freeze.” In the discomforting words of Adam Becker from BBC, “Don’t panic, but our planet is doomed” (2015). And it’s not just our planet, but our universe, as well.
There are four main predictions as to how the end will go down, and the one that is the most realistic is the Big Freeze. This is a “heat death” of sorts, and contrary to the way it sounds, it will end with everything being less than a degree above absolute zero. In other words, colder than you can even imagine. It’s a known fact that most everything in our daily lives on Earth requires a temperature difference. An example given in Becker’s BBC article is that “your car runs because it’s hotter inside its engine than outside.” Without these temperature differences, pretty much nothing will survive. It’s not a death due to heat, it’s the death of heat itself. This results in the Big Freeze: stars will die, matter will decay, and the only things left will be bits of particles and radiation, which will disappear over time due to the expansion of the universe. For around 100 years, this seemed to be the only reasonable explanation of the end.
But in the 1900s, astrophysicists began to think about the expansion of the universe, which led them to the idea of the Big Crunch. It was thought that as long as there is a “normal” amount of stuff--meaning matter, light, and things of that nature-- in the universe, the universe will keep expanding forever, and the heat death would have to be the end. But the big question that looms over us is what happens when there is too much stuff in the universe? Essentially, more stuff means more gravity. Science says that the universe will expand as much as it can until the amount of gravity pulling in on this stuff will snap everything back together, shrinking the universe into a very hot, very dense state. This means that the expansion of the universe will have to slow down and eventually stop entirely before it contracts. The Big Crunch is death due to fire, with the universe ultimately ending in a sort of explosion, sort of like a reverse Big Bang. For a while the Big Crunch and the Big Freeze were competing for the title of how the universe ends, but in 1998, astrophysicists revealed that the universe is not slowing down; in fact, it’s doing the complete opposite. The information of an accelerating expansion introduced the idea of “dark energy.” No one fully understands what this is, but the mysterious energy makes up about 70% of the universe. With this knowledge, the “amount of stuff” doesn’t play much of a role in the end of the universe because dark energy is controlling it, so the Big Crunch does not seem as likely.
A death due to ice and heat are somewhat easy to understand, but a prediction called the Big Change is a different story. This proposed fate of the universe is rather complicated and can be quite hard to wrap your head around. It deals with the ideas of quantum physics and the fact that a completely empty vacuum still contains some small amount of energy. Some say that there could also be another type of vacuum that holds even less energy. According to this theory, our universe will only exist until a “bubble” of lower-energy vacuum shows up. Right now, we don’t have any “bubbles” that we are aware of, but quantum physics shows that if this lower-energy vacuum is possible, it’s inevitable that this type of vacuum will appear sometime, somewhere in our universe. Upon its appearance, this new vacuum will “convert” the old vacuum around it, and humans, planets, and stars would be destroyed. But this Big Change only makes the idea of the Big Crunch more likely. With the expectation that dark energy would behave much differently after the Big Change, it could potentially destroy what is left of the universe by pulling it in on itself, just like the Big Crunch predicts.
While dark energy would be playing a role in the Big Change prediction, in the scenario called the Big Rip, dark energy is the sole destroyer. From what scientists can tell, dark energy’s density stays constant as our universe expands. To match the rate of the expansion of the universe, more dark energy comes in. But what if dark energy overcompensates? What if the amount of dark energy increases faster than the expansion of our universe does? This is where things get tricky. With this theory, it’s predicted that as time passes, the density of “phantom dark energy”--named by Robert Caldwell from Dartmouth College-- would increase until it tears, or rips, the universe apart. Hence the name: the Big Rip. It functions like a domino effect; once one thing falls, it only gets worse from there. The first thing to be pulled apart would be the Milky Way, followed by the solar system. Then the Earth would explode, and eventually “atoms themselves would shatter” (Becker, 2015). And for the grand finale, less than a second later, the universe would be ripped apart. All of this single-handedly done by dark energy.
There are the four most likely predictions: the Big Freeze, the Big Crunch, the Big Change, and the Big Rip. Right now the most probable prediction is the Big Freeze. In the words of Mr. Clark, the astronomy and physics teacher at Galloway, the heat death is not the “sexiest” end for our universe, but he, too, believes it is the most probable. It has the fewest unknown factors in it, making it the prediction we understand the most. “For both the Big Rip and [Big Change] catastrophes, there need to be values associated with certain parameters that we do not know right now, or types of matter/energy that we have not confirmed and we don’t have much reason to expect” (Clark, 2020). The big roadblock for these theories are the unknowns. How can we have confidence in a theory that involves so much that we don’t know? The answer is we can’t. That’s why we should rely on the end being the Big Freeze. Mr. Clark states that in this death, “we will slowly watch the universe stagger and sputter to a halt like some poor wind up toy,” which is a rather depressing fate. But one of the good things to come out of this possibility is that it provides the longest possible lifetime for our universe.
The idea that our universe even has a lifetime is interesting because of the relationship between time and our universe. The further we look into our universe, the further back into time we are looking. Simply speaking, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, so we can see 13.8 billion light years into the universe, and those things we are seeing happened 13.8 billion light years ago. As more time passes, we will be able to see more and more things. This makes it seem as though the future of our universe is just our past. While this might be a rather difficult idea to understand and wrap your head around, it would make sense with the Big Crunch theory because the end of the universe would mirror the very beginning, and it would come full circle. Even though this would be an interesting and rather magnificent end, there are too many unknowns making it seem even less likely.
But who’s to say that more predictions won’t come along in the future? Or that later research will completely rule out one of these predictions. But if anything came out of this particular research and writing, it’s that the end of the universe is coming, and it’s going to be “Big.”
There are four main predictions as to how the end will go down, and the one that is the most realistic is the Big Freeze. This is a “heat death” of sorts, and contrary to the way it sounds, it will end with everything being less than a degree above absolute zero. In other words, colder than you can even imagine. It’s a known fact that most everything in our daily lives on Earth requires a temperature difference. An example given in Becker’s BBC article is that “your car runs because it’s hotter inside its engine than outside.” Without these temperature differences, pretty much nothing will survive. It’s not a death due to heat, it’s the death of heat itself. This results in the Big Freeze: stars will die, matter will decay, and the only things left will be bits of particles and radiation, which will disappear over time due to the expansion of the universe. For around 100 years, this seemed to be the only reasonable explanation of the end.
But in the 1900s, astrophysicists began to think about the expansion of the universe, which led them to the idea of the Big Crunch. It was thought that as long as there is a “normal” amount of stuff--meaning matter, light, and things of that nature-- in the universe, the universe will keep expanding forever, and the heat death would have to be the end. But the big question that looms over us is what happens when there is too much stuff in the universe? Essentially, more stuff means more gravity. Science says that the universe will expand as much as it can until the amount of gravity pulling in on this stuff will snap everything back together, shrinking the universe into a very hot, very dense state. This means that the expansion of the universe will have to slow down and eventually stop entirely before it contracts. The Big Crunch is death due to fire, with the universe ultimately ending in a sort of explosion, sort of like a reverse Big Bang. For a while the Big Crunch and the Big Freeze were competing for the title of how the universe ends, but in 1998, astrophysicists revealed that the universe is not slowing down; in fact, it’s doing the complete opposite. The information of an accelerating expansion introduced the idea of “dark energy.” No one fully understands what this is, but the mysterious energy makes up about 70% of the universe. With this knowledge, the “amount of stuff” doesn’t play much of a role in the end of the universe because dark energy is controlling it, so the Big Crunch does not seem as likely.
A death due to ice and heat are somewhat easy to understand, but a prediction called the Big Change is a different story. This proposed fate of the universe is rather complicated and can be quite hard to wrap your head around. It deals with the ideas of quantum physics and the fact that a completely empty vacuum still contains some small amount of energy. Some say that there could also be another type of vacuum that holds even less energy. According to this theory, our universe will only exist until a “bubble” of lower-energy vacuum shows up. Right now, we don’t have any “bubbles” that we are aware of, but quantum physics shows that if this lower-energy vacuum is possible, it’s inevitable that this type of vacuum will appear sometime, somewhere in our universe. Upon its appearance, this new vacuum will “convert” the old vacuum around it, and humans, planets, and stars would be destroyed. But this Big Change only makes the idea of the Big Crunch more likely. With the expectation that dark energy would behave much differently after the Big Change, it could potentially destroy what is left of the universe by pulling it in on itself, just like the Big Crunch predicts.
While dark energy would be playing a role in the Big Change prediction, in the scenario called the Big Rip, dark energy is the sole destroyer. From what scientists can tell, dark energy’s density stays constant as our universe expands. To match the rate of the expansion of the universe, more dark energy comes in. But what if dark energy overcompensates? What if the amount of dark energy increases faster than the expansion of our universe does? This is where things get tricky. With this theory, it’s predicted that as time passes, the density of “phantom dark energy”--named by Robert Caldwell from Dartmouth College-- would increase until it tears, or rips, the universe apart. Hence the name: the Big Rip. It functions like a domino effect; once one thing falls, it only gets worse from there. The first thing to be pulled apart would be the Milky Way, followed by the solar system. Then the Earth would explode, and eventually “atoms themselves would shatter” (Becker, 2015). And for the grand finale, less than a second later, the universe would be ripped apart. All of this single-handedly done by dark energy.
There are the four most likely predictions: the Big Freeze, the Big Crunch, the Big Change, and the Big Rip. Right now the most probable prediction is the Big Freeze. In the words of Mr. Clark, the astronomy and physics teacher at Galloway, the heat death is not the “sexiest” end for our universe, but he, too, believes it is the most probable. It has the fewest unknown factors in it, making it the prediction we understand the most. “For both the Big Rip and [Big Change] catastrophes, there need to be values associated with certain parameters that we do not know right now, or types of matter/energy that we have not confirmed and we don’t have much reason to expect” (Clark, 2020). The big roadblock for these theories are the unknowns. How can we have confidence in a theory that involves so much that we don’t know? The answer is we can’t. That’s why we should rely on the end being the Big Freeze. Mr. Clark states that in this death, “we will slowly watch the universe stagger and sputter to a halt like some poor wind up toy,” which is a rather depressing fate. But one of the good things to come out of this possibility is that it provides the longest possible lifetime for our universe.
The idea that our universe even has a lifetime is interesting because of the relationship between time and our universe. The further we look into our universe, the further back into time we are looking. Simply speaking, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, so we can see 13.8 billion light years into the universe, and those things we are seeing happened 13.8 billion light years ago. As more time passes, we will be able to see more and more things. This makes it seem as though the future of our universe is just our past. While this might be a rather difficult idea to understand and wrap your head around, it would make sense with the Big Crunch theory because the end of the universe would mirror the very beginning, and it would come full circle. Even though this would be an interesting and rather magnificent end, there are too many unknowns making it seem even less likely.
But who’s to say that more predictions won’t come along in the future? Or that later research will completely rule out one of these predictions. But if anything came out of this particular research and writing, it’s that the end of the universe is coming, and it’s going to be “Big.”
Works Cited
- Becker, Adam. “Earth - How Will the Universe End, and Could Anything Survive?” BBC, BBC, 2 June 2015, www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150602-how-will-the-universe-end.
- Bragg, Melvyn. “The Multiverse.” Audio blog post. In Our Time. BBC, 21 February 2008. Web. 12 February 2020.
- Partridge, R. B. “THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE UNIVERSE.” The Science Teacher, vol. 42, no. 5, 1975, pp. 24–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24125695. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
- Than, Ker. “Time Will End in Five Billion Years, Physicists Predict.” National Geographic, 29 Oct. 2010, www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101027-science-space-universe-end-of-time-multiverse-inflation/#close.
- Tyson, Neil deGrasse. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. First edition. New York ; London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.
Capstone Process Reflection 2: 3/20
Recently there have been struggles with my Capstone project, mostly because of the transition from classroom to online learning. I’ve mostly been struggling to manage my time, so I need to look for more time to set aside specifically for Capstone work. I have done a lot of research and am working on trying to format what I’ve learned from that into my writing component/first draft. I’m using the outline I made from the previous Capstone assignment as a guide, but I’m allowing myself to modify as I see fit. I think the biggest thing I need others to understand is that while at first it may seem like a one answer quick question, it’s not. There is so much deeper thinking that goes into answering it, and it’s very difficult thinking, too. I think that my project will make people think about their relationship to the universe in a new way. I’ve been thinking about my artifact in the back of my mind, and I’m hoping that with the continuation of my draft writing, I will begin to think of more solid ideas. But right now, I’ve been considering doing a visual/hands on/interactive experience to show how the universe might end that people can understand without having done the intense research I have. I think I need to figure out how to reach audiences who know little to nothing about my topic and make them care/curious about it.
Capstone Project Research Component + Revised Project Narrative: 2/14
Introduction
After taking an astronomy class last semester, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the universe, time, and how these two things relate to one another. My biggest question is how will these two things end? Does the end of time rely on the end of the universe, or vice versa? I would look into the timeline of the universe’s existence: the beginning, the middle, and the end. I want to look into the different theories of the end of the universe and possibly determine which one would be the most realistic. In answering this question, I’m sure I will encounter situations in which I have to look at and answer questions about the interesting-- and perhaps dialectical-- relationship between the universe and time..
Subject Matter Experts
I think the two time zones I have to be careful about when planning how to use my time to my best ability is not letting work pile up over Excursion and spring break. I think it would be smart to get a head start and plan out as much as I can before Excursion starts. Another time is April because I’ll be super busy with theatre, dance, and chorus during this time with all of our tech weeks and performances. I’ll definitely want to get head starts for those specific due dates.
The Scholarly Conversation
I think that once I get into my research, I’ll be able to have better/more answers to my questions, but for now, I think there are a certain number of possible theories out there on how the universe will end, when it will end, what time has to do with this ending, and I want to look at each of these and figure out which answer to my question would be the most plausible (The Big Crunch, The Big Freeze, The Big Rip, etc.). It would also be interesting to propose these options to people who haven’t really thought about this sort of thing before and get their opinion on how they think the universe will end.
Annotated Bibliography
I believe that I will want to ask both of my experts pretty much the same questions.
After taking an astronomy class last semester, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the universe, time, and how these two things relate to one another. My biggest question is how will these two things end? Does the end of time rely on the end of the universe, or vice versa? I would look into the timeline of the universe’s existence: the beginning, the middle, and the end. I want to look into the different theories of the end of the universe and possibly determine which one would be the most realistic. In answering this question, I’m sure I will encounter situations in which I have to look at and answer questions about the interesting-- and perhaps dialectical-- relationship between the universe and time..
Subject Matter Experts
- Mr. Clark (internal)
- He taught me pretty much everything I know about astronomy, and he really got me interested in thinking about these things. I’ve had a few conversations with him about this, and I think he would definitely be open to talking about it more and giving me recommendations on things to read and listen to.
- David James (external)
- Dr. Holt mentioned him to me, and he seems very qualified, but also excited and willing to engage in a conversation about this topic, from what I hear.
- DW (internal)
- DW could be an interesting person to sit down and have a conversation about this stuff because it seems to be in the realm of what he tends to/likes to think about. I would enjoy getting his view on things as someone who hasn’t studied this field religiously. He would be a good person to have a conversation with about the non-scientific aspect.
I think the two time zones I have to be careful about when planning how to use my time to my best ability is not letting work pile up over Excursion and spring break. I think it would be smart to get a head start and plan out as much as I can before Excursion starts. Another time is April because I’ll be super busy with theatre, dance, and chorus during this time with all of our tech weeks and performances. I’ll definitely want to get head starts for those specific due dates.
The Scholarly Conversation
- Mr. Clark
- He taught me pretty much everything I know about astronomy, and he really got me interested in thinking about these things. I’ve had a few conversations with him about this, and I think he would definitely be open to talking about it more and giving me recommendations on things to read and listen to.
- David James
- Dr. Holt mentioned him to me, and he seems excited and willing to engage in a conversation about this topic, from what I hear.
- DW
- DW could be an interesting person to sit down and have a conversation about this stuff because it seems to be in the realm of what he tends to/likes to think about. I would enjoy getting his view on things as someone who hasn’t studied this field religiously.
- Stephen Hawking
- Stephen Hawking has thought, written, and questioned a lot about the universe, so it would be helpful to look into some of his work. In his final work “A smooth exit from eternal inflation?”, he predicts that as the stars run out of energy, our universe will fade to darkness.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
- I’m reading one of his books right now Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, which seems like it would be helpful to continue reading and thinking about for this project.
- John Baez
- I found a short article by him that discusses the end of the universe, how to fathom it, and what this “end” really means. I’d love to see what else he has written on this topic.
I think that once I get into my research, I’ll be able to have better/more answers to my questions, but for now, I think there are a certain number of possible theories out there on how the universe will end, when it will end, what time has to do with this ending, and I want to look at each of these and figure out which answer to my question would be the most plausible (The Big Crunch, The Big Freeze, The Big Rip, etc.). It would also be interesting to propose these options to people who haven’t really thought about this sort of thing before and get their opinion on how they think the universe will end.
Annotated Bibliography
- Becker, Adam. “Earth - How Will the Universe End, and Could Anything Survive?” BBC, BBC, 2 June 2015, www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150602-how-will-the-universe-end.
- This article puts the four main options of how the universe could end all in one place, describing each one using science in a way that isn’t overwhelming and is relatively easy to understand. It discusses the Big Freeze, the Big Crunch, the Big Change, and the Big Rip.
- This article answers my biggest question in a simple, straightforward way. While there is so much more to understand about our universe and its beginning and end outside of this article, it’s a good starting place. It’s also a good way to build a foundation for understanding the most popular expectations for the end of our universe.
- Bragg, Melvyn. “The Multiverse.” Audio blog post. In Our Time. BBC, 21 February 2008. Web. 12 February 2020.
- The host and guests on this podcast have a conversation about the possibility of the multiverse, our existence within our universe, and the question of whether or not the idea of a multiverse is even science.
- The multiverse idea is an interesting one because it is hard to comprehend that there could be more than one universe; it’s even harder to comprehend because it seems impossible to see the idea, test it, and prove it. I feel like getting some background on the idea of a multiverse will help better my understanding of our place in the universe we are in and we know.
- Partridge, R. B. “THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE UNIVERSE.” The Science Teacher, vol. 42, no. 5, 1975, pp. 24–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24125695. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
- This source discusses the science behind the beginning, middle, and end of the universe. It attempts to explain difficult concepts such as the expansion of the universe, the density of the universe, and the acceleration of the universe. It asks the question of if our universe even had a beginning, and proceeds to answer with evidence that it did. Near the end of the article, the author discusses a few possible outcomes for our universe taking into account what we’ve learned from the beginning and middle.
- This will help me understand more of the science behind our universe. I think that the science is not necessarily ALL of my project, but it plays an important role in understanding the beginnings/endings of our universe. It’s important for me to understand this when I’m reading, listening, or watching other things that involve the science.
- Than, Ker. “Time Will End in Five Billion Years, Physicists Predict.” National Geographic, 29 Oct. 2010, www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101027-science-space-universe-end-of-time-multiverse-inflation/#close.
- This article talks about how the universe has been around for billions of years, and it should be around for many more billions of years, but a new theory about the origins of the universe predicts that time will end at around the same time the sun is predicted to die: in about 5 billion years. It discusses eternal inflation, the multiverse idea, and the relationship between time and our universe.
- A big question of mine is how time and space are related and whether or not they will end at the same time. I want to know how they began, but once I understand that, I can look further into how they end, which this article will help me do.
- Tyson, Neil deGrasse. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. First edition. New York ; London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson spends a lot of the beginning of the book on the beginning of the universe, which is the part I most want to focus on. The first second of the universe has a whole ten pages devoted to it, noting its importance not only to Tyson but also to my research. He dives deeper into the difficult theories and mysterious phenomena like dark matter and dark energy, which seems very interesting, but not necessarily very relevant for my research.
- In order to understand the end of the universe, I have to understand the beginning. Where did these things come from? It’s like when we read creation stories. People write creation stories so we can better understand how we got to where we are and where we possibly might go. The creation story of the universe will help me understand these things better: how did the universe get to be the way it is and where will it possibly go?
I believe that I will want to ask both of my experts pretty much the same questions.
- To your knowledge, what are the possible ways for our universe to end? Describe them.
- How did our universe begin?
- Did time begin with the universe? Is it a chicken and egg situation?
- What is the relationship between space and time?
- Is the future of our universe just the past? (As more time passes, we can see farther into space, which means we can see farther back in time)
- What are your thoughts on the idea of a multiverse?
- Will we see similarities to the beginning of the universe when it ends?
- What do you think is the most important thing to know or understand about the universe?
- How do we know what we know about the universe and its ending?
- Do you have any book, journal article, podcast, etc. recommendations for me?
Capstone Process Reflection 1: 2/10
I haven’t had a lot of time to dive deep into my research yet, but I plan to start doing that this week. I’ve skimmed a few articles and saved them, so I can read them and look at them closely in the future. One that looked very interesting to me was a JSTOR article “The Beginning and the End of the Universe.” I’ve also listened a little bit to some podcasts about the multiverse, and looked at an article that talks about how Stephen Hawking co-wrote a mathematical paper trying to prove the multiverse theory before he died. I think in order to understand how the universe might end, I first have to try to understand the multiverse theory. I plan to speak with Mr. Clark, and hopefully get suggestions on books and articles to read that will help with my thinking. I would first ask him for these suggestions, but I would also really want to ask him about what he thinks the end of the universe looks like. I want to ask these same questions to David James, my possible external expert. I want to learn about the things he’s thinking about, and what he thinks might be helpful for me to learn more about in order to further advance my understanding and thinking about the end. I think I should start with some basic research, and dive deeper as I continue to read about theories.