In describing our four dimensional perception of the physical realm, I used the examples of lines and drew an imaginary cube in motion. In reality, space/time has a topology which is not smooth, level planes.
Einstein arrived at his theory of relativity by thought experiments which visualized space/time geometrically. Gravity should be seen as an indentation in space/time. Objects which arrive within a horizon of greater gravity will orbit downwards. Likewise, that same object would have to accelerate to an escape velocity to leave the indentation.
This is most obvious within the event horizon of a black hole. Even light does not have the velocity to escape its enormous gravity. For a graphic explanation of this geometry: Schwarzschild Geometry
Conversely, because space/time outdents in the vacuum of space would cause acceleration of the universe they may indeed be the mysterious “dark energy” which cannot be detected under laboratory conditions. Indeed, gravity may be so small compared to the other fields because it is inter-dimensional. Two Branes are Better than One
But I digress…
The bottom line is that because of this geometry, time passes slowly in the presence of gravity. A week near a black hole may be 40 years on earth, etc. Spacetime Wheel (see bottom chart).
This effect is particularly significant with regard to Genesis 1 because of the Inflationary model (i.e. the universe is expanding.) The following excerpt is from an article written by a Jewish Physicist. The article itself is thick on interpreting the Genesis passages:
The way these two figures match up is extraordinary. I'm not speaking as a theologian; I'm making a scientific claim. I didn't pull these numbers out of hat. That's why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so you can follow it step-by-step. Now we can go one step further. Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets exponentially longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world.
(In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)
The calculations come out to be as follows:
The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
The fourth day - one billion years.
The fifth day - one-half billion years.
The sixth day - one-quarter billion years.
But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.