"Michael Ragland"  wrote in message
news:clpocg$26p$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...

> Maurice Barnhill:
> If our understanding of the laws is correct, the universe recollapses if
> it has enough mass and expands forever otherwise.
> If there is a so-called cosmological constant or a type of
> matter that is functionally equivalent to a cosmological constant the
> expansion of the universe can actually accelerate. So our prediction of
> whether it is infinite in time depends on measurement of the density of
> matter in the universe and the cosmological constant. At the present
> time the density of matter appears to be small enough that the universe
> should expand forever, and the cosmological constant seems to be
> nonzero so the expansion seems to be accelerating.
>
> Michael Ragland:
> If true, how could intelligent life "mould the universe to it
> purposes" without at least supplementing and modifying
> our current physical laws or equations based on observation?
>
> Maurice Barnhill:
> If a very powerful civilization found that the universe will collapse,
> it might try to move matter around in such a way as to preserve
> at least a local region that would not collapse. That effort would
> not necessarily involve changing the laws.
>
> Michael Ragland:
> That is interesting.

And with an open universe scenario, I took this as, for example, collecting
and "storing" enough raw material to make stars without actually
making them
(i.e. without allowing the material to coalese to greater than a gas
giant-sized body) until we needed a star.  If we managed to do that with
enough material for say, 100 sun-sized stars, we could extend the species by
some trillion years (U.S. number).  This also would not necessarily need any
modification of physical laws.  Regards, Brett Aubrey.
>
>
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