So here’s a fun thought that happens to run counter to all the laws of nature and has absolutely no way of being true, but is still kinda neat. We all talk about the Big Bang Theory (the scientific theory not the CBS sitcom) and it’s generally accepted that it is the way the universe came about. Its cause remains mysterious because, well the catalysing event occurred before time itself so its hard to verify in any way whatsoever. But the theory itself is widely accepted.

Because we started small and grew big, there are basically two ways the universe can end; it can either fall back in on itself creating a Big Crunch (which could potentially instigate a subsequent Big Bang), or the universe will continue to expand faster and faster ultimately spreading itself so thin that all the energy will be too spread out to be of any use to life, often called the Heat Death or, for symmetry, The Big Freeze.

At its surface, the Big Freeze seems to be a less than optimal way to go. At least with the Crunch there’s the possibility that life could start over in the new universe the Crunch might create. But what if that weren’t the case? What if, at some point in the very distant future, the universe has spread so far out, the spaces between space so remote, that space-time itself ruptures? The universe would shatter across an infinite number of vertices with each atom, each quark, each gluon being torn apart by the universe’s expansion. And each particle ripped apart becomes a brand new Big Bang. A trillion new universes. Neat idea, right?