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The Ultimate Fate of the Universe

Jamal Nazrul Islam

Top 10 Best Quotes

“Why should one bother about the ultimate fate of the universe? One answer to this question is similar to the answer to the question about climbing Mount Everest: because the problem exists. It is in the nature of the human mind to seek incessantly new frontiers of knowledge to explore.”

“It is clear that there is a very great deal to be learnt about the universe and the endless subtleties of its various manifestations. What about the moral side of man, or what people with a religious bent of mind would prefer to call the spiritual nature of man? How will this develop in the endless aeons of the future? Perhaps in most of these questions like Newton we are still standing on the shore while the great ocean of knowledge lies ahead. It is significant that after more than two centuries of the acquisition of knowledge eminent men of science still have similar feelings.”

“If all astronomical processes cease, how will the passage of time manifest itself? It is doubtful if vacuum fluctuations can provide a clock for the recording of time. Will time itself come to a stop? Is this a meaningful question? Such questions are difficult to answer.”

“The human mind has a different attitude towards 'time' and 'space' as regards the survival of the human race.”

“Could the emergence of intelligent beings like us be one of nature's plans for the eventual survival of life through various extreme conditions?”

“There is very little hope for life of any kind surviving the big crunch in a closed universe. However, one cannot be dogmatic about this as one does not know the limits of human ingenuity. If indeed the universe is closed, we probably have tens of billions of years to think about how to survive the big crunch, if it is not against the laws of nature that something should survive.”

“The urge is irresistible to ask, are we an essential part of the plan and architecture of the universe? Is there a purpose to the universe? Of course one can immediately counter such questions by asking what one means by 'essential part' and 'purpose'. Perhaps such questions are improperly posed and should not be asked, but it cannot be denied that these questions arise in the mind.”

“The study of the universe as a whole is a unique enterprise. At least in one sense one is seeking to understand the totality of things. We, as thinking beings, are as much a part of the universe as are neutron stars and white dwarfs and our destiny is inextricably bound up with that of the universe.”

“The steady state theory is aesthetically and philosophically pleasing to many people, to whom it is a matter of regret that observations indicate that it is not the correct model.”

“Supposing a new era begins after the big crunch, will the number of protons (or baryons) be the same in the next cycle? Will the protons retain a memory of their previous life in the earlier epoch of the universe when deciding to decay or not to decay? Will there be subsequent cycles of big bangs and big crunches? If so, will proton decay affect the cycles of the far future? There exist no answers to such questions at present.”

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Book Keywords:

life, big-crunch, purpose-of-life, insparational, evolution, space, time, acquisition-of-knowledge, nature, science, inspiarational, survival, human-mind, existence, steady-state-theory, essentialism, philosophy-of-science, universe, particles, human, cosmology, human-race, physics, astronomy, knowledge, spiritual-nature, protons

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