A Big Freeze, Rip or Crunch: how will the Universe end?

Many theoretical physicists believe the Universe could end between 2.8 billion and 22
billion years from now, but they can't agree on its ultimate fate
By VICTORIA WOOLLASTON

The "most precise measurement" ever made recently suggested our Universe is expanding much
faster than previously thought, casting doubts on earlier predictions and even calling into
question Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Just as the Universe started after a Big Bang, astronomers are now attempting to study this
expansion to predict how the Universe will ultimately end.
The rate of this expansion may eventually tear the Universe apart, forcing it to end in a Big Rip.
Alternatively, the Universe could 'shrink', decrease or decay, effectively reversing the Big Bang
and destroying the Universe in a Big Crunch. A third theory is described as the Big Freeze.
Many theoretical physicists believe the Universe will end, and it could happen at any point
between 2.8 billion years and 22 billion years from now. Certain researchers even suggest the
process of its demise has already begun.
So what fate is awaiting our Universe?

The expanding Universe

"For a long time scientists, including Albert Einstein, thought the Universe was static and
infinite," explained Thomas Kitching, lecturer in Astrophysics at University College London.
"Observations have since shown it is in fact expanding, and at an accelerating rate. This means it
must have originated from a more compact state that we call the Big Bang, implying that time
does have a beginning." And it will likely have an end.
By studying ancient light, astronomers can see the so-called "relic radiation" from the Big Bang,
also known as cosmic microwave background. As the name suggests, Einstein’s special theory of
relativity, shows that time is relative. Kitching continued: "the faster you move relative to me, the
slower time will pass for you relative to my perception of time." This means that in our Universe
of expanding galaxies, spinning stars and planets, experiences of time vary and everything’s past,
present and future is relative.
Cosmologists have used this theory, as well as data from studies of cosmic background radiation,
to determine the 'cosmic age' of the Universe to be around 13.799 billion years old, and this can
help predict how, and when, the Universe could end.

Here are the three theories proposing how that end could come to be.
The Big Rip
The first theory claims the Universe will end with a Big Rip, as the pull of the Universe's
expansion gets stronger than the gravity it contains. This would tear apart galaxies, followed by
black holes, stars and even our own planet.
Earth, and humanity with it, could slowly decay into radiation, collapse in on itself or be ripped
apart as the Universe's expansion ramps up. This would leave the Universe full of single,
disconnected particles.
Until around five billion years ago, the Universe's growth was slow due to its strong gravitational
pull. More recently, this expansion increased, with many attributing it to the effects of dark
energy. For a Big Rip to occur, dark energy must win in its battle with gravity to such a point that
it can rip apart individual atoms.
Last year, Marcelo Disconzi, assistant professor of mathematics at Vanderbilt University in
Tennessee, in collaboration with physics professors Thomas Kephart and Robert Scherrer,
devised a new mathematical model for the Big Rip.
This model suggests that the expansion of the Universe will eventually become infinite. Previous
models largely ignored viscosity, but in Disconzi's hypothesis it is viscosity of the Universe that
drives its violent destruction. His theory is based on proposals made by French mathematician
André Lichnerowicz in the 50s.
The Big Rip, if it does happen, will destroy the universe 22 billion years from now

The Big Crunch

Another theory about the potential end of the Universe relates to the so-called ‘Big Crunch’.
If, instead of expanding forever, matter in the Universe reaches a point where it starts to decrease
over time, it could cause gravity to become the dominant force. This would ultimately cause the
Universe to shrink and cause stars, planets and entire galaxies to collide into each other and the
Universe would, for all intents and purposes, collapse in on itself.
Put simply, if the expansion of the Universe slows to a crawl and the Big Bang happens in
reverse, everything will implode back into a singularity.
Researchers in Denmark recently claimed to have proved that this process, known as a ‘phase
transition’ could already be occurring in our Universe; effectively ‘eating away’ at the cosmos.
A ‘phase transition’ is said to be similar to what happens when water turns to steam, for example.
According to the Higgs theory, a phase transition occurred one tenth of a billionth of a second
after the Big Bang, causing a shift in the fabric of spacetime.
During this transition, empty space became filled with an invisible substance now known as the
Higgs field. If a dense Higgs field exists, the researchers from the University of Southern
Denmark, believe a 'bubble' of this state could appear anywhere in the Universe, at any time.
The researchers' equations suggest that this bubble could then expand at the speed of light,
entering all space, and turning the Higgs field from the state it is in now into a new one.
The rules of quantum mechanics also suggest random particles can momentarily pop out of a
vacuum – something seen regularly in particle physics experiments.
Some argue dark energy could cause such 'quantum fluctuations' which in turn could cause 'a
new Big Bang' to end our timeline and start a new one. This is the least likely of the scenarios,
based on what we currently know about physics, but has been speculated.

The 'Big Freeze'

The third theory states that the Universe could end due to a Big Freeze. Also somewhat
conversely called 'Heat Death', this scenario is believed to be the most likely according to what
we already know about physics and the Universe.
This term comes from the theory that, in the Universe and other isolated systems, entropy will
increase until it reaches a "maximum value". Entropy comes from a principle of thermodynamics
that covers energy and specifically refers to the idea that everything in the Universe eventually
moves from order to disorder. As a result, entropy is the measurement of that shift.
Once entropy reaches its maximum, theoretical physicists believe that heat in the system will be
distributed evenly. This means there would be no more room for usable energy, or heat, to exist
and the Universe would die from ‘heat death’. Put simply, mechanical motion within the
Universe will cease.
During this Big Freeze, the Universe would, in theory, become so vast that supplies of gas would
be spread so thin that no new stars can form. Under that model, time becomes an endless void in
which nothing ever happens as there is little to no energy left in the Universe.

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