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When the universe will end and why we may never know

2022-09-25 20:28:40Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
When the universe will end and why we may never know
universe

Eric Betz – Discover Magazine

When Galileo Galilei pointed his first telescope at the heavens in 1610, he discovered "innumerable constellations of stars" hidden in the band of light called the Milky Way. That day our cosmos grew exponentially.

Nearly 3 centuries later, the cosmic boundaries were expanded once again when astronomers built telescopes large enough to show that the Milky Way is actually just one of many "island universes". Astronomers soon learned that the Universe was expanding, with galaxies being pulled apart at an ever-increasing rate.

Që atëherë, teleskopët gjithnjë e më të mëdhenj kanë treguar se universi i vëzhgueshëm përfshin një hapësirë ​​të paimagjinueshme prej 92 miliardë vjet dritë dhe përmban ndoshta 2 trilionë galaktika. E megjithatë, astronomët vazhdojnë të mendojnë se ka më shumë univers përtej asaj që ata vëzhgojnë.

“Universi ka qenë gjithmonë pak më i madh se sa ne mund të shohim”, thotë Virxhinia Trimbëll nga Universiteti i Kalifornisë, astronome dhe eksperte në historinë e kësaj fushe. Ndërtimi i teleskopëve më të mëdhenj nuk do të ndihmojë në zgjerimin e kozmosit që njohim ne.

“Teleskopët vëzhgojnë vetëm ato që mund të vërehen. Por nuk mund të shihni pas në kohë më larg se mosha e universit”-shpjegon kozmologu Xhon Mater, nga Qendra e Fluturimit Hapësinor Godard e NASA-s, fitues i Çmimit Nobel, që është gjithashtu shkencëtari kryesor i teleskopit hapësinor “Xhejms Ueb”.

“Pra ne jemi totalisht të kufizuar. Ne tashmë kemi parë aq sa ju mund ta imagjinoni”, shton ai. Si skaj, ne shohim shkëlqimin e mbetur nga Big Bengu – të ashtuquajturin rrezatim në sfond të mikrovalëve kozmike (CMB). Por ky nuk është ndonjë avantazh magjik i universit. Kozmosi ynë vazhdon të shtrihet më tej. Ne thjesht mund të mos e dimë kurrë se sa larg ndodhej kufiri i tij i fundmë.

In recent decades, cosmologists have tried to solve this mystery by first determining the shape of the universe, as the ancient Greek mathematician Eratosthenes did by calculating the size of the Earth through simple trigonometry.

In theory, our universe could have one of 3 possible shapes, each depending on the curvature of space itself: like a reverse-curved sheet, spherical (positive curvature), or flat (no curvature at all). Few people have advocated a universe in its first form.

But a spherical cosmos makes more sense to us earthlings. The earth is round, as are the sun and the planets. A spherical universe would allow us to navigate the cosmos in any direction and end up where we started, like Ferdinand Magellan's crew that circumnavigated the globe.

Albert Einstein called this model a "finite but unlimited universe". But starting in the late 1980s, a series of orbital observatories built to study cosmic microwaves (CMB) made increasingly precise measurements showing that space has no curvature at all.

It is up to the limits of what astronomers can measure. If it is a sphere, it is a sphere so large that even our entire observable universe does not register any curvature. "The universe is flat like an infinite sheet," says Mater. "Accordingly, you could keep walking infinitely far in any direction and the universe would be more or less the same," he adds.

So you would never go out to one end of this flat universe. Instead you will only find more and more galaxies. And that's fine for most astronomers. A flat universe agrees with both observation and theory, so this idea is at the heart of modern cosmology.

The problem is that, unlike a spherical universe, a flat universe may or may not be infinite. And there's no real way to tell the difference. “What can you look for to see if there is an infinite universe? No one knows," says Trimble.

So instead, astronomers hope that an answer can come from theory, from a model that can provide indirect evidence one way or the other. For example, the Standard Model of physics predicted the existence of multiple particles, such as the Higgs Boson, many years before they were actually discovered.

However, physicists still assumed that those particles were real. “If you have a good description of everything you've observed so far, and you predict that something is true, then you expect it to be. This is how most scientists think about how science works", concludes Trimble.


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