The research about the universe destruction
emerge in endlessly. On 19 February 2013, mailonline science reported that scientists studying the properties of the so
called 'God Particle' say they may be able to determine exactly how the
universe will end.
A concept known as vacuum instability could
result, billions of years from now, in a new universe opening up in the present
one as a tiny 'bubble', and eventually replacing it, they say.
'If you use all the physics that we know
now and you do what you think is a straightforward calculation, it's bad news,'
Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
in Batavia, Illinois, told reporters at the American Association for the
Advancement of Science meeting in Boston.
'It may be that the universe we live in is
inherently unstable and at some point billions of years from now it's all going
to get wiped out,' said Lykken, who is also on the science team at Europe's
Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, the world's largest and highest-energy particle
accelerator.
Physicists last year announced they had
discovered what appears to be a long-sought subatomic particle called the Higgs
boson, which is believed to give matter its mass.
Work to study the Higgs' related particles,
necessary for confirmation, is ongoing.
If confirmed, the discovery would help
resolve a key puzzle about how the universe came into existence some 13.7
billion years ago - and perhaps how it will end.
'This calculation tells you that many tens
of billions of years from now, there'll be a catastrophe,' Lykken said.
'A little bubble of what you might think of
as an ‘alternative' universe will appear somewhere and then it will expand out
and destroy us,' Lykken said, adding that the event will unfold at the speed of
light.
Scientists had grappled with the idea of
the universe's long-term stability before the Higgs discovery, but stepped up
calculations once its mass began settling in at around 126 billion electron
volts - a critical number it turns out for figuring out the fate of the
universe.
The calculation requires knowing the mass
of the Higgs to within one percent, as well as the precise mass of other
related subatomic particles.
'You change any of these parameters to the
Standard Model (of particle physics) by a tiny bit and you get a different end
of the universe,' Lyyken said.
Earth will likely be long gone before any
Higgs boson particles set off an apocalyptic assault on the universe.
Physicists expect the sun to burn out in
4.5 billion years or so, and expand, likely engulfing Earth in the process.
(source: scientific research publishing)
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