Posted on 12/18/2007 5:03:53 PM PST by bruinbirdman
It's the end of the world - but not as we know it.
A Spanish scientist suggests that the universe's end will come not with a bang but standstill - that time is literally running out and will, one day, stop altogether.
Professor Jose Senovilla, of the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, has put forward the theory as a rival to the idea of "dark energy" - the strange antigravitational force that is posited to explain a cosmic phenomenon that has baffled scientists.
It was noticed ten years ago that distant stars - the ones on the very fringes of the universe - seemed to be moving faster than those nearer to the centre, suggesting that they were accelerating as they shot through space. Dark energy was suggested as a possible means of powering that acceleration.
The problem is that no-one has any idea what it is or where it comes from.
Professor Senovilla's theory does away altogether with dark energy. Instead, he says, the appearance of acceleration is caused by time itself gradually slowing down, like a clock that needs winding.
While the change would be infinitesimally slow from an ordinary human perspective, in the grander scales of cosmology - in which scientists study ancient light from suns billions of years dead - it could be easily measured.
Astronomers are able to decipher the expansion speed of the universe using the so-called "red shift" technique.
Light from stars that are moving towards the earth is of higher frequency than that from the same sort of stars moving away. The principle is the same as that of an ambulance siren which gets higher as it comes towards the listener but lower as it moves away. Similarly, a star moving away appears redder in colour.
Scientists look for exploding stars, or supernovae, of certain types that provide a benchmark to work against.
However, the accuracy of these measurements depend on time remaining constant throughout the universe, says Prof Senovilla.
If time is indeed slowing down, then the far-distant, long-ago stars seen by cosmologists would be from an era when time ran faster. It would therefore, from our perspective, look as though they were accelerating.
"Our calculations show that we would think that the expansion of the universe is accelerating," said Senovilla.
He takes the basis for his idea from the superstring theory, which suggests that dimensions of time and space can move around and change places. His suggestion is that our solitary time dimension is slowly becoming a new space dimension.
In some number of billions of years, time would cease to be time altogether - and everything will stop.
"Then everything will be frozen, like a snapshot of one instant, forever," Prof Senovilla told New Scientist magazine.
"Our planet will be long gone by then."
While the theory is outlandish, it is not without support. Prof Gary Gibbons, a cosmologist at Cambridge University, believes the idea has merit. "We believe that time emerged during the Big Bang, and if time can emerge, it can also disappear - that's just the reverse effect," he said.
So much for the big rip.
B.S. Time is passing faster every day.
Surely there are some kind of offset credits we can buy?
So, in other words, this stupid idiot has NOT FREAKING IDEA!!! It is JUST A GUESS. Same as me and you MAKING A GUESS. Idiots.
Time for Time Conservation. CFL watches. Um...Ration stamps for sand. What about alternative time sources?
I tend to agree with him. The nice thing is that if time grinds to a halt, we’ll never know it. But I think time stopping is very far from here.
Crap! With my luck I'll be at work when this happens instead of doing something fun
I think this is happening right now in the freeway traffic.
“We’re running out of time!” Jack Bauer
The Mayan calendar ends with the year 2012.
Good Lord, I could write a book. Oh, wait a minute, I did...
I guess I’ll have to unload all my assets and spend the money quickly?
I've been saving time for ages now and have quite a collection. If you'd like, you can send me $20 and when time stops, I will send you five minutes of the time I have saved. Not a lot, but it might be enough time for you to find a comfortable way to sit, or maybe get out of the sun while time is not moving.
I couldn't find any CFL watches, but I found a CFL clock.
Hope you like punting on third down.
Theoretical physicists -- who haven't spent a day in the lab -- are total idiots. Couldn't agree with you more. Just like that clown Einstein. Lots of guesses, sure, but otherwise total idiocy...
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