The Large Hadron Collider and the Big Bang

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We can only see things that are passed a few hundred thousand years after the big bang, but we have a very good picture of what's going on. So how do you get from here to there? We think probably there was this rapid expansion, inflation. There may have been a singularity. It's possible that before that fiery state that the universe was infinitely dense, it's possible that we get back to that point. But that fiery state was about 380,000 years after the beginning. In the380,000 years, a lot happened.

Cosmologists are always talking excitedly about the Big Bang and all the cool stuff that happened in the 14 billion years between then and now. But what about the future? We don't know for sure, but we know enough about the laws of physics to sketch out several plausible scenarios for what the future of our universe will hold. Katie Mack is a cosmologist who is writing a book about the end of the universe. We talk about the possibilities of a Big Crunch (and potential Big Bounce), a gentle cooling off where the universe gradually grows silent, and of course the prospect of a dramatic phase transition, otherwise known as the "bubble of quantum death." Which would make a great name for a band, I think we can all agree.

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Katherine (Katie) Mack received her Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University, where her research centers on theoretical cosmology, including dark matter and black holes. She is also a member of NCSU’s Leadership in Public Science Cluster. Her upcoming book, The End of Everything, will be published in 2020.

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