« Astronomy and the Big Questions - Part 2 | Main | Another Destination? Another Sky! »
Astronomy and the Big Questions - Part 3
A Perfect Balance > Bleak. Dark. "Creepy," I actually heard one astronomer portray it. Those are descriptions of the future of our universe from some of the smartest people in the world. How can that be?
For the last two weeks here we've discussed the distant past of the universe - and saw that it was very good - and our present - and saw that it is an astonishing work of art.
But the future of our universe doesn't seem so rosy. There are some definitely dreary things coming our way, and we need to face them.
If we don't destroy ourselves in the near future - a very, very likely possibility - we still have to worry about "the inevitables." For example, we are long overdue for a meteor or comet strike. One well-placed city-sized rock hitting this place at 40 miles a second can lower the curtains on the entire human race.
Our Moon - a perfect partner presently - is slowing us down. Before you know it, our days will be 30… 40… 50 hours long. The resulting temperature extremes will be frightening and spell doom for much of life.
Certain death will come in just a couple dozen million years when the sun gets hot enough to boil away the oceans. Our perfect home will be dry and lifeless.
Escape to another planet, you say? Not likely, but let's pretend. Even if we could colonize another planet like Mars, the sun, our energy source, will eventually completely die out.
Then go to another star! Even if we had the means to get there, there isn't a star around us for 100 light years that has an earthlike planet. And even if we could get to a proper star farther out than that, that star is doomed as well.
Then we could starhop for eternity! No - seriously - every single star out there will eventually go belly up.
Worse, the universe is expanding faster and faster. So what? As the universe accelerates, star formation becomes impossible. Nothing can collect to form new stars or planets.
Bottom line: The universe, whether we like it or not, is destined to be cold and dark… and lifeless. The days of our lives are numbered.
Well that's just great! After all this perfection, death!
If this were a mere science article we could end it here. But this is part three of our scientific/philosophical look into a great story, our story. Time for the thinking caps!
If there is nothing but dark death ahead, where is hope then? Where is purpose? What is our destiny? In our first part we saw a beginning to it all, and deduced that there is something beyond space and time, beyond our universe.
Last week's column indicated that this home of ours is perfect beyond all imagination.
There are at least two conclusions we can make from all this. One goes like this:
We really don't know everything about the beginning, and can never know about anything "beyond" our universe. Anything would be pure speculation. And this present of ours could be just the end result of a near infinite number of purely random causes and effects. We just happen to be lucky winners in a cosmic lottery with odds trillions of times worse than any old manmade lottery.
And that bleak future is exactly what's expected from a purposeless, dark, "creepy" universe. Let's just eat, drink, and be merry…
Alright. Another view, on the opposite end, goes like this:
There was a beginning, hence, because of cause and effect, there was a Beginner. There is a "beyond," outside of time and space that we are expanding into. This transcendent Beginner, not bound by time and space, designed and organized this universe, and for the last 13.7 billion years formed and shaped and crafted it so that we humans could enjoy these brief years we have here.
A bleak future? Maybe not. Maybe this Beginner, this Master Planner, never intended this universe to be our only home, just our first. Maybe this One has another place, beyond these four dimensions of time and space, prepared for us. Perhaps our short lives here continue elsewhere.
Socrates told us "the unexamined life is not worth living." Do you see how those "cold, clinical sciences" might help us examine the Great Mysteries of life? Admittedly, there is just a small space here to discuss these profound thoughts and ideas. But I hope you were at least encouraged to start looking more deeply into life's great questions.
Until next time, clear skies - and clear thinking!
Posted by Mark Ritter at 2006.07. 9 03:17 PM | Comments (0)
