Photo by Cynthia Larsen

New research on when it will all end (but not the specific day)

By Ed Goldman

Apparently—though I’ll admit, not to me—our universe is dying. Not just dying but doing so a lot faster than scientists, astrologists and psychics had been predicting. 

While the drop-dead date isn’t predicted to occur for about eight billion years, give or take a day or two one way or the other, I’m definitely about to do the following:

– Put my affairs in order. I’m not sure what these are but I think it means paying off my Mastercard, which I’ve been counting on reincarnation to handle that;

– Finally see “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”;

– No longer think twice about announcing I will never play pickleball or Wordle;

– Eat doughnuts whenever I feel like it—and sometimes, even when I don’t, because, well, what the hell, right?

I’m going to resist the urge to break the law since dystopian sci-fi books and movies always tell us this is how anarchy starts. In short, just because we’re all going to be dead in eight billion years, give a day or two, is no reason to rob your barista’s tip jar.

Then there’s karma, which is either the Hindu/Buddhist notion of getting out of life what you put into it or the first two syllables of a word that ends with “cannic.”

Put simply, Will I be punished in eight billion years for robbing a barista’s tip jar—or will the barista have forgot about it by then? That’d be nice because I think he and I have a lot in common. For example, we both enjoy jazz and neither of us is good with names.

As you know, it’s impossible to have any discussion about the universe without mentioning Einstein. So please remember I just did. Moving on—

Oh, okay. Einstein. Naturally, the black-hole theorist is in on this new finding, though he’s been dead for 69 years. As CBS-News reports it, “If dark energy is constant, an idea first introduced by Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity, scientists say our universe may continue to expand forever, growing ever colder, lonelier and still. If dark energy ebbs with time, the universe could one day stop expanding and then eventually collapse on itself in what’s called ‘the big Crunch.'”

Hey, slow down, Boogaloo. I was just starting to believe in the Big Bang theory about how our planet began. Now I’m supposed to embrace a Big Crunch theory? I’d probably have an easier time buying that if it were somehow connected to Cap’n Crunch, the diabolically sweetened breakfast cereal once responsible for 75 percent of the fructose-corn-syrup highs experienced by children in our country’s elementary schools. (Note: You may want to check that cited percentage. I guessed at it while having Kellogg’s Sugar-Frosted Flakes for breakfast this morning.)

The bad news about our universe’s pending doom came from Dutch scientists, you might want to know. Why we trust the research of people who say, “Let’s split this” whenever the dinner tab arrives continues to appall me.     

While the Dutches reassure us we have nothing to worry about unless we’re planning to still be in assisted living in eight billion years, they still want to point out that their findings are important (can you say Grant Renewal Time?). The research “is a major revision from the previous estimate of 10 to the power of 1,100 years, notes the research paper from Radboud University, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.” (Note to self: Did I renew my subscription or was my secretary supposed to do that? Second note: When did I hire a secretary?)