system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
When physicists say that the fabric of spacetime will be torn apart if the Big Rip model is true, what does that mean?

Could someone elucidate the idea of spacetime getting ripped apart by accelerating expansion? What would be the physical description of this scenario? Does this mean that time itself would cease to exist? 

I know that there are certain fields inherent to space, such as quantum and Higgs. What would cause these fields to be destroyed instead of just stretched out?
gpt
Technically, it means that the scale factor becomes infinite in finite time. The scale factor describes the expansion of the universe. Right now, the scale factor is 1 by definition. There was a time where it was 0.5. Pick two arbitrary distant galaxies. Their distance was only half of what it is now at that time.

Similarly, there will be a time where their distance will be twice of what it is now.

When the scale factor becomes infinite, strange things happen. Observers will be causally separated. Eventually, atoms will be torn apart and even the confinement of quarks will be broken up. Then it's the end of everything.