[PatrickHenry]

Cosmology ping.

[This ping list for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. If you want to be included, or dropped, let me know.]

[Scully]

Thanks for the ping, Patrick. In any event, we will not be here either to be relieved or disappointed.

[PatrickHenry]

From the article:
"In a bouncing universe, all the matter currently flying apart slows until it reverses and falls towards a Big Crunch. Some physicists think this could ignite another Big Bang, in an unending sequence of expansion and contraction."

I wish Physicist would show up. My understanding regarding various theories of so-called "Oscillating Universes" is that they're supposed to undergo an entropy increase each time they bounce, so it can't be an eternal cycle. (I have my doubts about that.) Also, we recently had a thread called Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation's Polarization Detected at Last, which -- again, assuming my limited understanding is right -- puts to rest the new "crashing brane" theory of oscillating universes, proposed by Steinhardt and Turok. Polarization, so I'm told, wouldn't be a feature of the Steinhardt-Turok universe. If so, the scenario of a crunch, followed by another bang, is in deep doo-doo. But it's still early days.

[Kevin Curry]

How thoughtful. A ping list exclusively for the bigots of materialism.

[philetus]

Is black crunch like chocolate captain crunch?Because cap crunch jams my universal cycle.