Ship's time to cosmic collapse will be only three months.
Elof Nilsson empirically proved the oscillating universe here and the cyclical universe was re-mentioned here.
Observations of the collapsing universe from the Leonora Christine confirm Nilsson's proof. I would expect observations made at that stage and in those conditions to overturn all previous theories. However, before the re-expansion, all matter and energy will be condensed into the densest and hottest possible form. Although the ship, at its current velocity, might pass through a star, it cannot pass through the monobloc.
Reymont suggest that not all matter and energy will be concentrated in the monbloc. That is a mathematical fiction. There will be a hydrogen envelope. Its outer fringe might not be too hot, bright or dense for the ship which would therefore be able to orbit the monobloc and spiral outward with the new Big Bang. (Sounds unlikely.)
Even Williams is disturbingly humbled. There are theists and atheists aboard. A theist might think that God has spared the ship to make this attempt, the last Exodus - or a second Fall? The unanimous vote is to proceed.
3 comments:
Well, proceeding is the logical course.
There's no downside risk: if they stop now, they die in empty blackness and leave no descendants. If they continue the monobloc will kill them -- which is, effectively, the same thing.
OTOH, if they proceed and -do- survive the monobloc and the new Big Bang, they're golden.
Hence there's really no rational argument for not trying. The worst downside of trying is about the same as the inevitable result of not trying, and it has a possible upside that not trying does not.
It doesn't really matter much how large the probability of success is, when the outcome of not trying is certain failure.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Again, I agree.
Sean
This seems a fairly simple "what've we go to lose, we have no alternatives" choice.
Since this is fiction and not fact, imagine if someone had determined that there were a significant (perhaps highly probable OR incalculable) chance that doing this would (for some handwavium reason) prevent the new universe from forming or changing the physical laws so it would be unable to have any kind of life at all....
Well, Elsie crew: do you raise the stakes further or do you call?
-kh
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