

Bizarre theory suggests time may be running out (2007) - dlnovell
http://breakingnews.ie/world/bizarre-theory-suggests-time-may-be-running-out-341140.html

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roc
My brain dismissed string theory as epicycles long ago. And I just can't get
past that bias.

 _However_ , the approach of taking another look at our _assumptions_ to
explain the 'expanding' universe makes my brain very happy.

So the story has me quite torn ;)

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David
That makes me very, very curious. Does universal expansion imply increasing
distances between every atom in the universe, or only between, say, galaxies?
I can't see how the second would work, but the first would be ridiculous as
well - increased distances between atoms covalently bonded together? Shouldn't
the chemical properties of compounds change as bond distances change? Or would
the necessary bond distances for a reaction change at the same pace as the
universe is expanding?

I originally arrived at the line of thinking via the measurement question - is
anything in the universe at an unchanging distance from anything else?
(According to expansion theories, anwyay.) If that's the case, would it not be
possible to measure the wavelength of the light reaching relatively-fixed
object A from its counterpart object B? If the red shift still occurs, then we
know time is slowing down. If not, then expansion wins.

Expected problems for this measurement would include scale (if chemical bonds
are the only distances in the universe that don't change, how do you measure
the wavelength from one atom to the next?), and more scale (would the change
be measurable on a scale smaller than intergalactic?). Oh, and the original
assumptions. Those might be a problem, too. (That something (anything) is
fixed, and that my mental model is not orders of magnitude oversimplified).

~~~
jonsen
"I can't see how the second would work"

That's a timely remark ;)

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fauigerzigerk
I cannot grasp semantically what it would mean for time to slow down. When we
say x slows down, we mean that x takes more time to do y than before. Now if
we say time slows down, we say that time takes more time to do y than before.

So what does it mean for time to take time?

I have a similar problem with the idea that time has somehow started to exist
as the whole concept of starting depends on time.

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jonsen
".. what does it mean for time to take time?"

What does it mean for length to take length?

If space expands doesn't that mean that a meter gets "longer"?

~~~
alxv
But to an observer, a "longer" meter is sill a meter.

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dhimes
But if you create something where a meter is shorter, then move it to where a
meter is longer, you will have, for example, a photon whose wavelength you
think you know (because you understand the process, say a hydrogen transition,
that created it) have a slightly longer (red-shifted) wavelength.

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tybris
That's not bizarre, that would be a brilliantly simple explanation of a
bizarre phenomena. My brain hopes it's true, but has many questions. I guess
the key question is a pretty old one: what determines time?

Anyway, assuming this is true should be an interesting thought experiment. If
time is slowing down universally we shouldn't notice a difference
(relativity). The suggestion seems to be that time is going slower in our
older part of the universe than it is around the "edges". Making it seem to an
observer in an older part like the expansion is going faster and faster,
despite the fact that no energy is being added. This also seems to suggest
there should be (even older) parts of the universe for which the perceived
acceleration is negative. I wonder whether that's the case. A tricky bit is
that if they are in fact moving towards us and we're moving away from them at
a faster time pace, they would still appear to be moving away from us at an
accelerating rate.

Another question is what would be the difference between those parts of the
universe. One might argue that the older galaxies that have attracted more
time-slowing mass, but that's shaky. Another idea might be that the speed of
time is driven by the amount of active energy itself. Perhaps a new definition
of entropy would help us there.

Hoping to hear more.

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param
This explains why the 100m dash speed record keeps getting broken.

~~~
kingkawn
It also explains why I can't manage to get to certain meetings on time.

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nico
Disclaimer: Totally amateur (ignorant?) comment.

At an atomic/particle level, movement (speed) is related to temperature. If
something reached 0 degrees Kelvin, there's no particle movement at all. You
could argue that since time is relative to space (as opposed to an independent
variable), time would slow down as temperature goes down. If the whole
universe is cooling, maybe time is slowing down.

Source info: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_temperature>

~~~
jsonscripter
Nice thought, except that temperature is simply a measure of speed. When
something is said to be a certain temperature, it is said to be moving at such
a speed with a certain amount of kinetic energy. That is why when liquids get
"hot" enough, they start emitting gas... which is really just particles that
have essentially reached the escape speed of their respective surface tension
(roughly speaking).

Which is sort of a backwards way of saying that General Relativity actually
talks about the relationship between speed and time, saying the faster an
object is going, the slower (in a sense...) it is travelling through time.

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mcantor
This reminds me strongly of the xkcd poking fun at string theory by
summarizing it thus: "What if everything were comprised of tiny, vibrating
strings?" -- "What would that entail?" -- "I dunno." However, the idea itself
is so delightfully creative and "sci-fi" that I had to save it.

~~~
tybris
"It is said that papers in string theory are published at a rate greater than
the speed of light. This, however, is not problematic since no information is
being transmitted. "

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bitwize
What that educated stupid scientist doesn't know is that we have plenty of
time: because there are actually 4 simultaneous days in one 24-hour day!
Hence, 4 times as much time as we thought!

~~~
burke
<http://timecube.com> for the confused.

~~~
caffeine
Wow .. I can't believe that site isn't more popular. It's awesome!

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nopassrecover
I kind of wondered if there was a way to measure the idea that time goes
faster as we get older. I know it's most likely a memory/new experience thing
and has been discussed before but let's just assume that time goes faster over
time ("time acceleration" or the rate of change of time) and that we could
perceive it (again impossible). How would we measure this? I mean could this
effect be related to space-time curving etc. from matter and somehow similarly
measured? Doubtful but an interesting thought experiment.

~~~
jonsen
"If time has been slowing down, and clocks are now running more slowly than
they did long ago, it would appear from our perspective as if things have been
speeding up."

If this explains why we feel time going faster as we get older, wouldn't that
imply that our soul is based in a non-physical dimension?

~~~
philwelch
Finally, a means of testing the mind-body problem!

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socratees
>>We believe that time emerged during the Big Bang, and if time can emerge, it
can also disappear – that’s just the reverse effect.

From what I can understand, it reminds me of the Richard Feynman's QED theory
where he says vacuum is not really empty but particles with opposite charges
get created and nullify each other in a short time.

Forgive me, i may be naive.

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teeja
I get a kick outta people who think about time like it really exists.

Time "exists" as a result of measurements of the Earth's rotation. That's how
'universal' it is. Hmmm. Maybe it's speeding up, like a film. Maybe that's why
the 'universe' is accelerating. Or maybe it's moving with a sine-wave motion
... which explains why I'm feeling dizzy.

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cmars232
I hope it doesn't run backwards when it hits the end, like in PKD's Counter-
Clock World.

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jackdawjack
string theory, if you look at it too cynically it's a high dimension
optimisation process.

edit: also the headline seems a bit over-dramatic it's not running out it's
slowing down.

~~~
tybris
> also the headline seems a bit over-dramatic it's not running out it's
> slowing down.

Good point. Time is only relative. I'm not sure if there would be any nasty
(human) consequences to time going infinitely slow. It's still going at the
same pace for the observer.

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gtt
hope it won't start running in opposite direction....

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TrevorJ
I wonder what that would do. Would we start to live in a universe where
entropy was reversed?

~~~
paulgb
I wonder how we would even _know_ if time was running backwards. Supposing it
is even possible, couldn't time be running backwards right now and we don't
know it?

