The Advocate:
Julio Navarro, Cosmology and Gravity, Fellow
The Pitch:
Is there any question bigger than what the fate of the Universe might be? Every other question you can ask just refers to small parts of this one. The fate of the Universe involves questions about the nature of matter and energy, speculation about whether the laws of physics could be anything other than what they are, theories about parallel Universes, and a quest to understand the very nature of existence.To understand the fate of the Universe, one must understand the forces of nature – physics and chemistry are just the start. What is the nature of gravity, that strange force that causes every object in the Universe to be attracted to every other? How can space and time, which seem relentlessly absolute, be warped and altered?
This biggest of questions also involves studying the smallest of particles, for the fate of the Universe is also tied up with the forces that hold atomic nuclei together, and the nature of electromagnetic radiation that carries heat and light to us from the sun. Everything we are familiar with, and everything we wish to understand is tied up with the nature – and therefore the fate – of the Universe.
We don’t find anything depressing about pondering the ultimate fate of the Universe – far from it. The same way that understanding the cycles of night and day, the seasons, the phases of the moon, the spinning of galaxies, and the birth and death of stars motivated past generations of scientists, today we draw inspiration from the awesome fact that we, human beings – tiny creatures (on a universal scale) on a small planet in the outer edges of an ordinary galaxy – have developed the tools needed to observe the universe and to gain some understanding of its breadth, its depth, its history and its future.
The Bottom Line:
“What is the fate of the Universe?” is the Next Big Question because it evokes the awe-inspiring journey of our intellect toward the ultimate frontier of knowledge.