THE Higgs boson could destroy the universe. There is a chance that one of these particles has collapsed in a distant corner of the cosmos, producing a bubble of expanding vacuum energy that could envelop us all. The end of time and space is predicted by the standard model of particle physics, our best description of the universe's particles and forces. Playing out the interactions between them to their logical end, Anders Andreassen at Harvard University and his colleagues have made the most precise estimate yet of the universe's lifespan: the lights go out after 10~(139) years.
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