: I was watching the Discovery Chanel the other day and they had a show on gravity and they had some scientist that found out that the universe was going to keep expanding at a faster and faster rate forever. Is this information true?

YES. Astronomers have found that the universe was expanding at a slower rate billions of years ago. From this they assume that there is a non-zero cosmological constant in the universe. This constant comes from the energy of the vacuum which is an expansive force. Knowing the constant which is a constant in the solution of Einstein's equations of General Relativity, they can determine the past and the future of the universe. Present predictions is that it will expand forever at a faster and faster rate. However, there are a number of assumptions in this prediction- like that the cosmological constant remains constant for all times. So, althought the prediction is fairly likely to be true, like almost everything in science, it ain't necessarily so.

• Re: Universe - Richard/">Richard - June 8, 1999 - 15:34 UTC