WASHINGTON (AP) -- The "big bang" will not be followed by the "big crunch."
That's the conclusion of five teams of astronomers who used different techniques to gather evidence on the future of the universe. Based on those results, said Ruth Daly, a Princeton University astronomer, "It is quite clear now that the universe will expand forever."
The astronomy teams, in effect, were trying to determine if there was enough matter in the universe to force it to one day stop its current expansion and to start collapsing inward. Their findings, presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, support the idea that there'll never be a grand crunch.

This all gives rise to some interesting questions. First, let's look at more of the news item.

Most astronomers now accept the idea that the universe began with a "big bang", a moment about 15 billion years ago when a superdense point exploded in the most gigantic bang imaginable. It is believed that since that moment, all matter in the universe has been expanding outward. The controversy among astronomers is whether the universe is "closed" or "open."
In a closed universe, the expansion would continue until gravity from the mass of matter canceled the outward force and the motion reversed directions. In effect, the idea went, the universe would then collapse inward and come back together until it was all crammed into a single point of unimaginable density. Hence, "the big crunch."
But astronomers from Princeton, Yale, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Institute reported Thursday that all of their studies show the universe is "open." In effect, they found that the universe will continue to expand, and even accelerate, forever and ever.

One could spend productive lifetimes contemplating the nature of the "superdense point" that existed beforehand, presumably as a sort of universe in utero. Among the puzzling profundities is the question of just how and where exactly that superdense point might have existed, given that the physical universe had yet to be born. . .

What if the scientists had found that the universe were "closed," ie, at some point would stop accelerating and start collapsing? One can only imagine what the gut-wrenching characteristics of that turnaround moment might be. Would the whole underlying nature of existence not alter after that? Would it be like the biggest, most devastating mood swing ever? And from then on, would we all start feeling a little more claustrophobic each day, as the very universe itself shrank with every passing moment? And would real estate values not go down as quarter-acres inexorably became 50 x 100 ft. lots?

Thankfully, these are questions we don't have to plague ourselves with -- assuming the astronomers have it right this time. Science, ironically, has a way of invariably collapsing onto its own so-called "conclusions."

But what if they are right? What is the significance of infinite expansion? It does have a sort of Wild West, gung-ho feel to it. But does it not mean that everything is getting farther away from everything else? Does it mean my commute home will subtley get even longer as time passes? As they're talking about infinite acceleration as well, doesn't that mean I'll be burning more gas at the same time? This could get expensive! They can talk about infinite expansion and acceleration, but note that in their exuberance they fail to mention infinite inflation.

And doesn't that acceleration imply that if the universe were closed, that its collapse would happen along with a deceleration? And doesn't that mean that if it shrank and decelerated at the same time that it would eventually get so slow, infinitely slow, as to virtually stop, and never get to the "big crunch" after all? It could be worse, seeing as we've all survived days much like that.

Alas, the news report does go on, and the universe's prognosis is not good:

Daly used [a] system measuring the distance and motion of radio "hot spots," intense sources of natural radio signals that emit from very hot stars. She said her data, using this independent measure, agreed with the others: The universe is open and will expand forever. That, however, doesn't mean nothing will change, [she] said. She said that eventually all the fuel in the stars will burn out and the universe will become cold and dark "with nothing left but rocks."

Great. Petering out not to a crunch or bang, but to a mere whimper: a cold, dark, rocky, infinitely accelerating expanse... like a really big Mississauga.

But perhaps an appropriate fate for samsara.