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How is this universe supposed to end? There are two basic theories, neither pleasant: "The Big Crunch," the inward-rushing, squashing together of all things; and "The Death of Heat," the flying apart and dissipation of all things. But recently, startling challenges put it all up for grabs. There’s a lot loaded into our question, "Will This Universe Ever End?" Cosmologists look to the total amount of matter in the universe. Is there enough for gravity to reverse the current expansion and ultimately cause The Big Crunch? And if this universe ends, would another take its place? Or are other universes already in existence, perhaps an infinite number of them? There aren’t too many people who get paid to ponder the end of the universe; this show has several. 

Participants: Freedman, Lederman, Linde, Murphy, Tipler

	Wendy Freedman is an astronomer at the Carnegie Observatories where she is principal investigator for a major Hubble Space Telescope project assessing the distances to galaxies in order to determine the expansion rate of the universe. Her work is internationally recognized as providing the key observational data accurately defining the age of the universe.
	Leon Lederman won the Nobel Prize in physics for contributing to the body of evidence that explains the fundamental structure of matter. He is Director Emeritus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the founder of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, and the author of two best-selling science books, The God Particle and From Quarks to the Cosmos.
	Andrei Linde, professor of physics at Stanford University, is one of the authors of "inflationary cosmology," the startling explanation for how the universe began and the global structure of the universe. Developed while he was still in Russia, "inflation" is one of the most remarkable theories in the history of science, dramatically expanding our sense of Reality seemingly beyond all comprehension.
	Nancey Murphy is professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary and a leading scholar in the relationship between science and religion. Her books include On the Moral Nature of the Universe and the award-winning Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning.
	Frank Tipler is professor of mathematics at Tulane University where his interests focus on cosmology, particularly the fate of the universe. His two books have stimulated much controversy: The Anthropic Principle, which states that this universe was required to bring forth conscious human life, and The Physics of Immortality, which presents a rather wild theory about the ultimate future state of the universe.
	Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator and host of the Closer To Truth television series and author of the Closer To Truth book. Trained in brain research (Ph.D. UCLA), he has published more than twenty books, including the Handbook for Creative and Innovative Managers and the seven-volume Library of Investment Banking. He is the president of The Geneva Companies, a leading merger and acquisition firm for private, middle market businesses.
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