Once the expansion of the universe has accelerated enough we should be safe from this, right? My thinking is that if some galaxy starts collapsing as you described, but all surrounding galaxies are moving away at FTL speeds, it would never reach them.
Correction, it should be the entire observable universe not the entire universe since light outside the observable universe cannot reach us due to expansion thus anything that travels at speed of light can also not reach us.
Either way, unless we can prove that our current understanding of physics is wrong, devastation at a universal scale could happen any time, anywhere.
This is a disingenuous way to phrase this. Our current understanding of physics leads us to hypothesize that our universe could be metastable, there is no proof that we actually exist in such a state.
Of all the big scary things in the universe, this one scares me the least. Even if it does happen and is the worst-case scenario you just cease to exist at the speed of light before you even know something is happening. No pain, no dread at your inevitable demise, you just are living your life normally and in a nanosecond you are gone. Not a bad way to go, imo.
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Once the expansion of the universe has accelerated enough we should be safe from this, right? My thinking is that if some galaxy starts collapsing as you described, but all surrounding galaxies are moving away at FTL speeds, it would never reach them.
That would reduce the chances, but this could happen to literally any particle. Kind of hard to avoid it when it’s in one of your spleen molecules.
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Correction, it should be the entire observable universe not the entire universe since light outside the observable universe cannot reach us due to expansion thus anything that travels at speed of light can also not reach us.
This is a disingenuous way to phrase this. Our current understanding of physics leads us to hypothesize that our universe could be metastable, there is no proof that we actually exist in such a state.
Of all the big scary things in the universe, this one scares me the least. Even if it does happen and is the worst-case scenario you just cease to exist at the speed of light before you even know something is happening. No pain, no dread at your inevitable demise, you just are living your life normally and in a nanosecond you are gone. Not a bad way to go, imo.
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