VACUUM DECAY

There is a small possibility that eventually the universe will end through a phenomenon called vacuum decay, in which a quantum fluctuation leads to a small bubble of unusual space-time called pure vaccum, which would then quickly grow and devour the entire cosmos. The probability that the universe will disappear in a quantum bubble is very low. But we have uncertainty in this statement, and that uncertainty is driven by the value of this force. Vacuum decay is the ultimate ecological catastrophe. In a vacuum there are new constraints of nature. After vacuum decay, not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it. It is predicted that a vacuum decay event could occur within the next twenty to thirty billion years, so it's probably not an imminent threat.