This is the way the world ends: not with a bang but a higher harmonic generation.
The same researchers who used exotic substances called metamaterials to make a benchtop Big Bang have mimicked the end of time, also known as the Big Crunch.
Light traveling through metamaterials is described mathematically by equations used to describe space and time, allowing physicists to probe cosmic questions in a controlled manner.
In this experiment, the photons underwent a “higher harmonic generation,” or a sudden rise in frequency and energy. Put another way, “the end of time looks very hot,” said electrical engineer Igor Smolyaninov of the University of Maryland.
Smolyaninov and colleagues Ehren Hwang and Evgenii Narimanov wanted to probe the Big Crunch, a postulated scenario in which the universe contracts back upon itself, eventually collapsing into a black hole.
To read the rest of the article, click here."This article is misleading. No big crunch at all in the actual paper." - Jack Sarfatti