Slashdot Mirror
Universe May Be Running Out of Time
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."
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.