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bonds
                                                                  foresee
                                                                   Glossary on
              What happens if the density of dark energy           page 85
              increases the universe grows? Or, we could
              ask: What happens if the quantity of dark energy in the
              universe grows more quickly than the expansion of
              the universe itself? Even the bonds in atoms
                                                                   blink (v.):
              would break in just the blink of an eye before       parpadeo
              the universe tears itself apart.

              Of course, there is no good reason for us, individually, to
              worry about the universe ending. The Big Change scenario
              might be an exception, but all of these possibilities occur
              trillions of years in the future, so they shouldn’t keep you
              up at night. Also, there’s no reason to fear for humanity. But
              could any kind of intelligent, aware creatures survive?

              A solution has been proposed by some physicists, it really
              sounds like a mad scientist’s theory. To survive the end of
              the universe, their solution is to build our own universe in a
              laboratory, and hop on in. Alan Guth of MIT in Cambridge,
              Massachusetts is one of the physicists working on this idea.

              “I can't say that the laws of physics absolutely imply that
              it's possible,” says Guth. “If it is possible, it would require
              technology vastly beyond anything that we can foresee. It
              would require huge amounts of energy that one would need
              to be able to obtain and control.”

              Guth also points out the end of the universe is not the only
              possible outcome. He believes that there is a multiverse in
              which there are more “pocket universes” like ours. So the
              universe we inhabit is just one little piece of a multiverse.

              “If that's the case, even if we’re convinced that an individual
              pocket universe will ultimately die, the multiverse as a whole
              will go on living forever, with new life being created in each
              pocket universe as it's created,” says Guth. “In this picture,
              the multiverse as a whole is genuinely eternal.


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