this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Not sure about the "restart" bit.

[–] humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

If it’s mathematically equivalent to the starting conditions of our universe, why would it behave differently?

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

I don't think you can argue that it's mathematically equivalent. Just because space and time become so spread that they are effectively meaningless is not the same as them having not meaningfully existed and then existing. Neither can you really say that since any baryons that have not decayed are so far apart none of them interact that they behave like the concentration of all matter in the known universe. At those scales of time I'm not even sure that there are any left.

It's like arguing that one tiny piece of something in one place is the same as all the matter and all of space and time being in one place: it's I guess analogous but not equivalent. I will of course caveat and say that my undergrad physics degree did not cover end of the universe timelines lol. Kurzgesagt does have a video though.

The cyclical universe approach as I understand it is predicated on an eventual big crunch which I don't think is being argued anymore.

[–] humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying he’s right. I just thought the objection was to the “restart bit”, and I thought that part reasonably followed if the earlier parts were accepted.

But Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology is pretty much the opposite of a Big Crunch.

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

I guess I'll have to read up. I have potentially had a long running misunderstanding.

[–] Blemish5236@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC2JOQ7z5L0

The cyclical universe approach as I understand it is predicated on an eventual big crunch which I don't think is being argued anymore.

The universe is definitely cyclical, the only real question is: how?

There's lots of theories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoCYY9sa2kU

[–] StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 months ago

Unless it's been disproven it's not "not being argued anymore"

[–] Karjalan@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Because things haven't progressed linearly with the universes evolution, and, as the op stipulates, we are part of one second vs countless billions of years (relatively) till it's theoretical demise, it is possible/probable that we don't know what will happen down the line.

Certain things might change to make it possible that we simply can't predict due to lack of information (the future) and technological difficulties.

[–] Eagle0110@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah I also think it would take a lot more than just one single bit of discrete information in an universe of completely uniform and homogeneous nothingness, to restart the universe lol /s