The problem is when we're looking at the expanding universe we're looking back in time. While we're doing that the future is rushing in at us faster than we can see it coming.
So just when we think the whole thing is billions of years fro
In the interest of elevating the discourse, as if anyone is interested, I offer the following I received from a FRiend.
The underlying paper is much less dramatic, at least in the abstract.
http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.101302
Sequestration of Vacuum Energy and the End of the Universe
Nemanja Kaloper and Antonio Padilla; Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 101302 – Published 10 March 2015
Abstract: Recently, we proposed a mechanism for sequestering the standard model vacuum energy that predicts that the Universe will collapse. Here we present a simple mechanism for bringing about this collapse, employing a scalar field whose potential is linear and becomes negative, providing the negative energy density required to end the expansion. The slope of the potential is chosen to allow for the expansion to last until the current Hubble time, about 1010 years, to accommodate our Universe. Crucially, this choice is technically natural due to a shift symmetry. Moreover, vacuum energy sequestering selects radiatively stable initial conditions for the collapse, which guarantee that immediately before the turnaround the Universe is dominated by the linear potential which drives an epoch of accelerated expansion for at least an e fold. Thus, a single, technically natural choice for the slope ensures that the collapse is imminent and is preceded by the current stage of cosmic acceleration, giving a new answer to the “why now?” problem.