Nope. Stephen Hawking terms this notion his 'greatest mistake'. -- Eigenfunction Diffeomorphism

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Date Posted: 00:38:24 07/31/04 Sat
Author: One-eyed Jack
Subject: Nope. Stephen Hawking terms this notion his 'greatest mistake'.
In reply to: Emmet Barry 's message, "Time theorm" on 11:57:37 04/03/03 Thu

The assumptions in your math are incorrect: the distance term in the speed of light refers to how far light travels in a given time, and has nothing to do with the size of the universe. No matter how large or small the universe is, light always travels and has always traveled exactly 9.4605284 � 10¹² kilometers per year. If the universe is 9.4605284 � 10¹² kilometers across, light takes one year to cross it. If it's 9.4605284 � 10¹⁵ kilometers, light takes 1000 years to cross it. The speed of light is completely independent of the size of the universe; the speed of light is constant.

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The collapse of the universe would not be the mirror image of its expansion; it would not be time-symmetric. Think about it in terms of physics: what known physical mechanism would cause iron to undergo reverse fusion and end up as hydrogen and helium? In a collapsing universe, as stars and galaxies came closer and closer together some would coalesce but neither the resulting black holes nor supermassive stars would create primordial hydrogen and helium from iron.

Therefore the collapse of the universe would not mirror its expansion; there would be no era of diffuse ionized gas; there would be no nascent sea of 'hot particle soup'; instead there would be a steadily growing and eventually all-encompassing black hole.

Incidentally, the recent COBE satellite results indicate that the universe will never collapse but will continue expanding forever. In fact, the rate of expansion will increase into the future.

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