Man Observes the Dark Side, Destroys the Universe

If you thought there was a lot of arrogance in the idea that mankind could destroy the earth, how about the idea that mankind could destory the universe....just by looking at it:

PARIS: Astronomers may have unwittingly hastened the end of the universe by simply looking at it, according to a new theory.

The novel idea is being aired by two US physicists, who attack the notion that the universe, believed to have been created in the “Big Bang” some 13.7 billion years ago, will go on, well, forever.

In fact, the poor old cosmos is in a rather delicate state, they say. Until recently, a common idea was that the energy unleashed in the Big Bang happened when a “false vacuum” - a bubble of high energy with repulsive gravity - broke down into a safe, zero-energy “ordinary” vacuum. But recent evidence has emerged that places a cosmic question-mark over this cosy thought.

For one thing, cosmologists have discovered that the universe is still expanding. And, they believe, a strange, yet-to-be-detected form of energy called dark energy pervades the universe, which explains why the sum of all the visible sources of energy fall way short of what should be out there. Dark energy, it is said, is a result of the Big Bang and is aiding the universe’s expansion.

If so, the Universe is not in a nice, stable zero-vacuum state but simply another “false vacuum” state that may abruptly decay again - and with cataclysmic consequences. The energy shift from the decay would destroy everything in the Universe, “wiping the slate clean,” says Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

The good news is: the longer the universe survives, the better the chance that it will mature into a stable state.

Save the universe - stop looking!