Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

by Brian Greene

An increasingly powerful repulsive push of gravity would, in time, triumph over all forces that bind, with the result that everything would be torn apart. Your body is held intact by the electromagnetic force, binding together your atomic and molecular constituents, and also by the strong nuclear force, binding together the protons and neutrons inside of your body’s atomic nuclei. Because these forces are far stronger than today’s outward push of expanding space, your body holds firm. If you are widening, it is not because space is expanding. But if the strength of the repulsive push grows ever larger, the space inside your body will ultimately expand with such a powerful outward thrust that it will overcome the electromagnetic and nuclear forces holding you together. You will swell and ultimately burst to pieces, as will everything else.