Airbrush

You are denying what the experts in the field tell us? What do you know that they don't? Gravity will always exist, it will just be too weak to have any effect on the expansion of the universe. Dark energy is the "fuel" of empty space. So the more space there is between pockets of matter, the more fuel for accelerated expansion. Scientists believe what they do because they are on the front lines doing experiments and reading the data. I tend to trust them to know better than I do. What data have you been reading that they haven't? Sorry that they don't have the whole picture, they are just telling us the best they can with what limited information they have. And they tend to agree with each other on this issue.

Maybe a Big Bang can happen anywhere at any time. There hasn't been another since 13.7 Billion years ago, so as Captain said the chances are negligible during our lifetime. I'd instead worry about Yellowstone erupting.

DS: ".....there is no force stronger than gravity in relative terms of time other than the original break of a singularity which balances the forces. I think the big crunch has to exist ...." There is one factor you are ignoring....space. Space is SO vast that gravity cannot bound it all beyond a limit. There is just more space than you (or anyone else) can imagine. The Big Bang was always in motion, from the very beginning. Nothing can stop it as far as we know.

Nice news! Thanks to contributors. Good examples of an attenuator and tide power.

I went ahead and made the edits myself, hahaha. Thanks for everything.

WIKIPEDIA ERROR: "According to observations of structures larger than galaxies, as well as Big Bang cosmology interpreted under the Friedmann equations and the FLRW metric, dark matter accounts for 23% of the mass-energy density of the observable universe. In comparison, ordinary matter accounts for only 4.6% of the mass-energy density of the observable universe, with the remainder being attributable to dark energy. From these figures, dark matter constitutes 80% of the matter in the universe, while ordinary matter makes up only 20%". 80% is 4 times 20%, so Wiki is off. It should say "...dark matter constitutes 83.3% of the matter in the universe, while ordinary matter makes up only 16.7%." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

Thanks for the photo of a tide generator. Interesting. They should cost much less to build than dams, because tide generators only need to be a little higher than water level. They would need to be firmly anchored to the estuary floor and would be most effective if they were miles long.

That's a fairly precise estimate, 4.51 to 5.48 times as much dark matter as ordinary matter. Wikipedia is off by 20%. Maybe someone should edit Wikipedia with this data. "According to observations of structures larger than galaxies, as well as Big Bang cosmology interpreted under the Friedmann equations and the FLRW metric, dark matter accounts for 23% of the mass-energy density of the observable universe. In comparison, ordinary matter accounts for only 4.6% of the mass-energy density of the observable universe, with the remainder being attributable to dark energy. From these figures, dark matter constitutes 80% of the matter in the universe, while ordinary matter makes up only 20%. 80% is 4 times 20%, so Wiki is off by 20%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

I heard in the news this stealth chopper has more rotor blades which makes it quieter.

Thanks for the info Spyman. Could you please help us convert these values into everyday English? About how much more dark matter is there than ordinary matter? Is there more or less than 4 times as much dark matter as ordinary matter? Exactly how much more dark than ordinary matter as precisely as you can tell? Do these values come from measuring galactic rotation or lensing?

Thanks for your thoughts pwagon. The wigglers are called "attenuators". They float on the surface and as waves pass under them the segments flex and generate power. There are a number of diverse methods to extract power from ocean waves. Tides can also generate power like a dam in which water flows both ways twice each day. I think you can have more dams on the same river, but dams are expensive to build. I only thought of connecting the attenuators to off shore wind turbines because the infrastructure for one can be used for the other. They could work together to send power along the same cables to shore. http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/guide/wave/index.cfm "Attenuators are long multisegment floating structures oriented parallel to the direction of the waves. The differing heights of waves along the length of the device causes flexing where the segments connect, and this flexing is connected to hydraulic pumps or other converters."

I haven't heard of this, has anyone? It must be possible to harness the power of waves rushing to and from shore. How about harnessing the power of tides going in and out twice daily? I've seen the wave-power-generating "wigglers" (I'm not sure what they are called) that are rafts connected in such a way that as they wiggle from waves they generate power. Maybe these could be connected to wind turbines off shore.

Interesting idea that a super intelligent predator supresses or even eats others. Maybe only the meat of intelligent beings is most delicious to them. Where are they? 1. There are so few the nearest one simply hasn't reached us yet, or 2. They ARE here observing us covertly and have been for thousands of years and they are very careful to not leave behind irrefutable evidence. They don't need our resources. After thousands or millions of years of practice they have become very adept at evasion techniques.

Good question. Anyone know if the magnitude of gravitational lensing tells us exactly how much matter (dark and ordinary) is causing the bending? I think they only roughly estimate there is about 4 times as much dark matter as ordinary matter. How precise is this estimate?

It's effect is gravity. We cannot see it, which is not saying much for our ability to see things, we can only calculate it's mass by its' gravitational effect on galaxy rotation.

Dark matter may occupy dimensions we cannot explore. "There" it exists and has a ghost gravity, but because it exists in higher dimensions, we cannot detect it, only it's effect.

Thanks for the info Widdekind. That is new to me. So the results of a SN is such a fine disbursed plasma gas that when it cools it becomes a giant cloud of microscopic particles of different elements that later combine randomly. The elements don't get "sorted".

On Earth plate techtonics churns the crust bringing heavier metals and diamonds to the surface, or blasted from volcanos. But when a star supernovas I would agree with Lemur. Even though metals sink to the center of a molten blob of supernova, it can frequently be liberated. Suppose a giant "droplet" of supernova solidifies then later collides with another and they both break into pieces. There is a good chance the heavier metals in the center would be exposed to easy access.

The answer to the Fermi Paradox is the Rare Earth Hypothesis. Any other Rare Earthers out there? "...By concluding that complex life is uncommon, the Rare Earth hypothesis is a possible solution to the Fermi paradox: "If extraterrestrial aliens are common, why aren't they obvious?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_hypothesis

Cannot a supernova create enough pressure to create diamonds? Is it correct to say that asteroids are solidified "droplets" of a supernova? Suppose someday a robotic probe discovers a huge deposit of gold on an asteroid. That could potentially reduce the value of the metal to the value of iron or other common metal.

I agree. And I like it even better if they say "I don't know....but ya wanna know what I think?" Yes I do.

The same elements and compounds that make up the Earth are also found in asteroids. So, anything you can find on Earth can also be found and mined from asteroids. There may be asteroids with huge gold or diamond deposits, like nothing we have ever seen on Earth. We would have to search for the materials, and when we find something interesting robots can do the work, and the low gravity will make it easier to transport it towards Earth.

Chris: "....The implications of such conjectures are that that our universe (and, perhaps, others) may have formed out of nothing." What confuses people is what astrophysicists call "nothing" is more than the average person thinks nothing is. "Nothing" is filled with potentiality which gets expressed in any number of ways over infinite lengths of time.

As Spyman says we see the spacing out by redshift of light from those distant galaxies. Hubble discovered that the farther away they are the more red shifted their light is.

The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate only on the largest scales of structure. Superclusters of galaxies are moving away from all other superclusters of galaxies. Within a supercluster everything is gravitationally bound. The clusters of galaxies are bound by gravity to the other clusters of galaxies. Of course our galaxy is even more tightly bound by gravity. Stars are not flying out of the Milky Way into intergalactic space (except for binaries throwing an occasional star out into the abyss).