The Big Rip - October 20, 2014

Ah, there is nothing like a contemporary physics course to set things right and in place or completely turn them upside down, either way, exhilarating. What physicists have recently discovered about the universe, both what they now know and don't know have grown so dramatically recently that it is truly staggering. And they learn this by simultaneously studying the largest and smallest known dimensions, in itself a sizable feat. So if some of the theories are correct, the 70% of the universe consisting of dark energy is expanding the universe at an accelerating rate that will culminate by ripping everything apart right down to the subatomic particles. Wow!

So now I really have something to worry about at night ... anti-matter. A spot of that would lead to a premature big rip as far as I can tell.