Sat, 24 Nov 2007

Have we sealed the universe's fate by looking at it?

Ah, the arrogance of humanity! If the quantum 'Zeno effect' is in fact operational here (and there's a good reason to doubt that it is - see the quip from Max Tegmark near the end of the article), then why are humans the ones who've reset the clock, and not some alien species from another galaxy?

The real reason this isn't even mentioned is, of course, that it doesn't make nearly as good a headline.

Have we hastened the demise of the universe just be looking at it? That's the startling question posed by a pair of physicists who suggest that by observing and measuring dark energy we may have accidentally nudged the universe back to a point early in its history when it was more likely to end. The researchers in the US came to the conclusion by calculating how the energy state of our universe might have evolved.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

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