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Universe May Be Running Out of Time

Posted by Zonk on from the ticking-clock dept.

RenHoek writes "With heat death, the big crunch and quite a few other nasty ways in which the universe could see its demise, we can now add "running out of time" to the list. A team of scientists came up with a new theory that would solve the problem of the elusive dark energy that seems to be accelerating the expansion of the universe. They figure that the universe is not speeding up but we are, in relation to the outer regions of space, slowing down. Tests with the upcoming Large Hadron Collider will give more insight if we're going to end up frozen in time."

9 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. actually we're in a time loop already by AllNicksTaken · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/09/1544200

  2. Re:We'll have to rethink everything by omeomi · · Score: 3, Informative

    If time turns out to be a non-constant, so goes everything we know about anything.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity

    "Although special relativity makes some quantities relative, such as time, that we would have imagined to be absolute based on everyday experience, it also makes absolute some others that were thought to be relative."

    --
    ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
  3. who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    We'll all be dead loooooooooooooooooong before then.

  4. Re:er...define 'constant'... by DahGhostfacedFiddlah · · Score: 1, Informative

    Wow - you're getting some pretty useless answers to your very legitimate question.

    Anyway, to answer your question, God did it.

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    Last post!
  5. Re:er...define 'constant'... by Broken+Toys · · Score: 5, Informative

    It doesn't make "logical sense" because it violates "common sense".

    This isn't a new concept. Someone's just come up with a new theory to support the concept. This may just be another way of viewing the oft proposed heat death of the universe due to entropy.

    Stephen Hawkin amongst others has explained this before. In short, time as we know it didn't exist before the Big Bang. During the inflationary period of the Big Bang time was probably faster than we observe it today. Currently time has stablised somewhat but is probably slowing due to the expansion of the universe.

    All this suggests that time may be intertwined with space and now we're back to Einstein's space time continuum. This is one of consequences of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

    Me? I'm going to hide under a rock with a case of beer until this all blows over.

  6. Re:er...define 'constant'... by coolGuyZak · · Score: 2, Informative

    Einstein's theory of relativity features time dilation. Maybe that can help.

  7. Re:er...define 'constant'... by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    If the rate of time's passage is changing, does this mean that in some sense the speed of light in a vacuum is no longer constant at all places and all times? Relativity treats the speed of light as a constant, and so does the current definition of the meter. But other constants, such as the charge of an electron or the gravitational force between two 1 kg masses 1 m apart, might change over time to make it look like the speed of light is changing.
  8. Re:er...define 'constant'... by Iron+Condor · · Score: 2, Informative

    Once you understand that "time" is itself a relative term, i.e. observer-dependent, it isn't terribly hard to take any one "dt" and put it into the numerator and some other "dT" and put it into the denominator. Obvious choices that pop up in GR textbooks all over the place might include co-moving (i.e. "proper") time vs "time as seen by an outside observer".

    Note that even in simple vanilla special relativity people speak of "time slowing down" for fast-moving objects. What they mean is that a pion that is produced at a high velocity seems to survive longer than one that is produced at rest when observed by someone from the outside. For the pions themselves, nothing changes.

    --
    We're all born with nothing.
    If you die in debt, you're ahead.
  9. Dodgy, dodgy, dodgy ... by shellbeach · · Score: 3, Informative

    I came accross this information. Seems if light is slowing down why not time? Australian physicist Barry Setterfield and mathematician Trevor Norman examined all of the available experimental measurements to date and have announced a discovery: the speed of light appears to have been slowing down over the years. Not enough ns, presumably highly vague estimates of error. You can't write that c is decreasing based on three measurements, which is probably why only 16 dodgy publications have cited this work since it was published in 1987.

    I'm also slightly disturbed by the fact that you copied your post paragraph verbatim from http://www.khouse.org/articles/1995/58/, a web site that has as its mission statement, "To create, develop, and distribute materials to stimulate, encourage, and facilitate serious study of the Bible as the inerrant Word of God." Probably not the best source for a discussion of theoretical physics, methinks ...