The idea of the universe dropping into a new quantum state isn't a new one. The discovery of Higgs bosons may have substatiated it a little more, but the theory has been around for years.
Or it might happen tomorrow. Who knows.
It does indeed seem to be random. But even so, "billions of years" isn't really the timescale we should be thinking of. Hell, even quadrillions or quintillions of years would probably be woefully inaccurate. Something like 10^100 years seems to be more in the right direction. That's about the number of protons in the Milky Way * 1000 * the current age of the galaxy. By that time any normal matter will already have disappeared loooooong ago (in about 10^43 years IIRC) and there may just be some giant black holes lurking about, ever so slowly evaporation due to Hawking radiation. Good odds that literally nothing will be around to witness it.cerebus23 said:Isn't it implied that this is all kind of random? or does our universes current energy state disallow it? Or can some higher energy or bigger universe just decide to plop into our universe at any given moment?
Or it might happen tomorrow. Who knows.