Tell me-what happens if you have a rotating metal rod, and let's say part of that rod 5 feet from the center is moving at .999c. What happens to the rod at 10 feet? 20 feet?
The rod at the location you describe simply could not move that fast. Because it is part of a whole, any particles which are part of that rod (and any other system) obey the relativistic principle.
As the outside of the rod is reaching the speed C, its mass becomes larger and thus energy to accelerate becomes larger until infinity, because E=MC². The energy could never be attained as it reached infinity. So, the rod at the location you describe could never reach the speed you describe.
About the topic at hand.
My belief on the universe scale is of a multiverse theory. If we can rewind time towards a big bang, I do not believe the "bang" was sitting there waiting to happen. A universe must have collapsed on the other side of the bang. When that other universe collapsed, its mass crunched and "popped" into our dimension, spewing out a giant burst of matter.
I would believe that if it happened once, the event would be unlimited in scale, and a foam of multiverses would exist outside of our own universe, creating an infinite amount of universes.
I have followed some of the things Dr. Michio Kaku has mentioned in his lectures, in which he thought that to escape the fate of our own universe, someday we would need to jump into another universe in the foam of infinite universes. Structure would not survive, so particles would need to be sent through which reassembled themselves as data to assemble DNA on the other side. Far out, I know, but an interesting take on the challenge of escaping the fate of a dying universe.
Here is something to think about which can stimulate the imagination:
If you play the lottery, and buy just one ticket, you aren't likely to win.
Instead of that one ticket, imagine that you now bought 1 million tickets to the lottery. Saying that you might win once or twice may not be too far fetched with this many tickets on hand.
Now, imagine that you purchased not just a million tickets, but an infinite amount of tickets. Since you have every possible number covered in an infinite amount of repeats, you will have won the lottery an infinite amount of times.
Where am I going with this, exactly?
I am going right for one of the things this thread touches upon. The realization of infinity, and an infinite amount of circumstances.
I want you to visualize what it means to have an infinite amount of space, and an infinite amount of universes. What it means is that you have an infinite amount of circumstances. What it means is that somewhere out there, there is a situation occurring which is exactly like the one you are in now. Not only is that situation occurring somewhere out there, it is occurring somewhere out there an infinite amount of times right as we think about this, in an infinite amount of variable ways! Right now, you are somewhere else. You are getting hit by an asteroid. You are falling off of a cliff. You are winning the lottery! You are being born.
It is the power of infinity. You cannot deny it.
Either way, cool research which does cast doubt on more of our understanding of the universe
