Time

[jajrussel]

I don't know how to discuss this or even ask questions without falling into speculation, and though there are a lot of threads about time in non speculative parts of the forum I couldn't figure out how to bring this up without feeling like I might be hijacking the thread, so this is probably the best place for the thought.

 

Current views on time are that the faster you go the more time slows down, and that if you are the one going faster you are not even going to notice.

 

Apply this thought to falling into a black hole and time slows. At least this is the way I understand it.

 

Apply this thought to the big bang. What then? It wouldn't seem to make sense that the universe started as a black hole because the bang part of it implies extreme acceleration, so without regard to how fast things were moving before the bang it very suddenly got so much faster.

 

Comparatively speaking this would seem to imply that at the point of bang time started slowing down, and with each second that passed time got slower. Reverse the thought and you get time going very fast near the beginning of the bang, perhaps before the bang. I do realize some people say that time started after the bang though I don't know why they feel that needs to be true.

 

Anyway, it seems to me that a very dense gravitational point would have to be out of the question. I have also read that gravity didn't exist before the bang.

 

Does anyone have a clue as to how fast time can go?

 

In speculating how fast the universe initially expanded how much would time have slowed down?

 

I have other questions, but it is bed time.

[Strange]

The things that the time dilation effects you are thinking of are relative effects; i.e. the time of someone moving versus someone stationary; or the time of someone approaching a black hole as seen by someone else at a distance.

 

That doesn't apply to the early universe because everywhere was affected the same way. So there was nothing to measure any change against.

 

Also, you may be thinking of the "bang" as implying some sort of explosion or rapid kick-start. The name is very misleading in that respect. There may have been an initial period of very rapid expansion ("inflation") but the jury is still out on that, and it stopped almost immediately. Apart from that, the expansion has been continuous at a fairly steady rate (it appears to have slowed slightly at first and then accelerated slightly after that).

[jajrussel]

Actually,I am thinking of the big bang as an event. Not not just an explosion;Not just rapid inflation.

 

Chronological processing is already applied to the event.Do we take two views of time? In a sense we already do. How time applies to us at one speed, and how time would apply to us at another speed, but that is actually one view, and should be consistent with the event.

 

If there was a lull then rapid inflation, then a minor lull, then a steady accelerating continuation of inflation.

Then the current view of time says that time was moving very fast, slowed down rapidly, sped back up, and is now slowing back down at a steady accelerating rate.

[Strange]

Actually,I am thinking of the big bang as an event.

 

You shouldn't!

 

We have no idea if there ever was such an event. The term "big bang" describes the universe we see around us evolving from an earlier hot, dense state. We don't know what happened before that hot dense state or how it came about.

[jajrussel]

 

You shouldn't!

 

We have no idea if there ever was such an event. The term "big bang" describes the universe we see around us evolving from an earlier hot, dense state. We don't know what happened before that hot dense state or how it came about.

You are right we don't know, but the theories exist. The event is speculation not of my making.

 

Your statement itself is theory. There is no specific place we can pick and say time started here. Some try to do this when they talk about the big bang. They use terms like in the beginning. It is an arbitrary point. You need to start somewhere. It signifies an event. Not necessarily the beginning of all.

 

Time, from a relative point of view suggest that certain events can only occur if time is in a certain state. If we are moving very fast, time is slow. If we are moving very slow, time is fast. It applies across the board.

I don't want to confuse the thought with semantics, but perhaps,I should have used the word phase, rather than state in regard to time.

?

Perhaps, both apply... Okay I have succeeded in confusing myself.

...In a recent thread/post it was said that c is invariant, and that currently the reason why is uncertain. What I am trying to do, not with this thread, but at this moment is suggest a reason why.

 

When we move faster or slower time shifts. From our point of view time is invariant. The clock will not appear to move any slower, or any faster. We use this same clock to measure c. Therefore c is and will always be invariant.

 

Now, we can use two clocks in two different positions and note a time difference, but from each clocks point of view there there is no time difference.

[Endy0816]

You are thinking of the popular misconception for the Big Bang Theory.

 

The misconception is akin to pointing at a toddler and claiming that is the moment of birth. That is literally not what the actual Theory is saying at all.

 

It is simply saying if we look back through time we can see the Universe was once a toddler(hot, dense state) that has since then grown up(expanded). It doesn't say, because there simply isn't any evidence for it, how the Universe got to be in that toddler state.

[Dekan]

 

Also, you may be thinking of the "bang" as implying some sort of explosion or rapid kick-start. The name is very misleading in that respect. There may have been an initial period of very rapid expansion ("inflation") but the jury is still out on that, and it stopped almost immediately.

 

Could you clarify the difference between, an "explosion", and an "initial period of very rapid expansion ("inflation)"?

 

Don't they both mean the same thing. Except that "initial period of very rapid expansion (inflation)" uses more big words. And so sounds, to some people, more scientific?

 

 

I

[Strange]

 

Could you clarify the difference between, an "explosion", and an "initial period of very rapid expansion ("inflation)"?

 

I was talking about two different things.

 

Firstly, "explosion" makes people think that there was some "stuff" densely packed into a corner of the universe that suddenly went bang and spread out through space. That is not what the theory says. Instead, "stuff" was densely spread throughout all of space. Then space expanded so the stuff got less dense and cooled. Eventually it cooled enough to form atoms and then stars and galaxies. (We don't know where the initial "stuff' came from.)

 

This expansion happened at a fairly steady rate. Which is another reason why it was not an explosion. Some people hypothesize that there might have been an initial period of much more rapid expansion of space called "inflation". This is not universally (!) accepted. But if inflation happened, it still wasn't an explosion, because it was space that was expanding, not stuff being thrown out into space.

[Dekan]

Thanks Strange, I appreciate your reply. But you seem to be invoking an entity called "Space". Which can "expand", by itself. This sounds mystical.

What exactly is "Space". Is it made of particles? Are there "spacetrons" - particles of Space? Do they get bigger, or further apart, when "Space" expands?

 

If not, how can "Space" have any real existence. Surely It's just an abstract word like "Gap".

 

When things get further apart, like galaxies in the Universe, there's a bigger "gap" between them, But can this be explained by saying - it's because the "Gap" between them has expanded.

Would that be a satisfactory explanation?

[Strange]

Thanks Strange, I appreciate your reply. But you seem to be invoking an entity called "Space". Which can "expand", by itself. This sounds mystical.

What exactly is "Space". Is it made of particles? Are there "spacetrons" - particles of Space? Do they get bigger, or further apart, when "Space" expands?

 

Space (in this context) is just the distance between things. The universe is described, in the big bang model, as having four dimesions: 3 spatial and one temporal. As you move through the temporal dimension, the spatial dimensions get larger, so the material inside gets less dense.

 

 

When things get further apart, like galaxies in the Universe, there's a bigger "gap" between them, But can this be explained by saying - it's because the "Gap" between them has expanded.

Would that be a satisfactory explanation?

 

That's about it. (There is, as always, a lot of subtle mathematical detail behind it.)

[jajrussel]

Okay, now I am a little confused because some of these replies were not showing up on my devises, well the main devise my phone where I started the thread. Then suddenly they were here. Up until that point I kind of just kept rambling, and it just kept attaching those ramblings to the end of my post.

 

 

 

You shouldn't!

 

We have no idea if there ever was such an event. The term "big bang" describes the universe we see around us evolving from an earlier hot, dense state. We don't know what happened before that hot dense state or how it came about.

 

Why shouldn't I?

 

I can understand your point on the difference between a bang and rapid inflation, but what part of not knowing if an event did or did not occur negates the the point of thinking about it?

 

I have read that new discoveries throw some of the inflationary models out. I am fairly certain that until there is more solid evidence toward the new discoveries that those who support those ousted models while be trying to keep them in the running. As it stands I don't care which model wins. What I want to see is, that model tied to all things current to include Time and Relativity.

 

I am curious; can rapid inflation be explained by time fluctuation? I haven't exactly figured out how to put it in words that do not make me sound completely ignorant. Thus your point of distinction between a bang, and rapid inflation.

 

To say that the universe suddenly inflated may be supported by current evidence, but it does not explain why it could, or would happen. Generally, the hangup in any model whether you are talking about the Big Bang, or the Standard Model is that it don't fit, or work until someone thinks of something that makes it fit, and work. One should probably wait a while before they say no point in thinking about this; we don't even know if it actually occurred.

 

One person says gravity is on, then turns off, then turns back on. Another person says time starts with the big bang, period. I prefer to think at the moment, that the event referred to as the Big Bang, or rapid inflation occurs within time. It is kind of necessary, if the event is the result of the accretion of some nearly gravity neutral material that once a specific pressure is reached begins a reaction at the center and works its way outward, and continues outward because the pressure wave creates enough force to continue the reaction throughout the material. The result being rapid inflation, then other reactions. These are not my ideas, I am just trying to think of another creative way to put them together.

 

I know it is not going to be that simple.

Edited August 11, 2014 by jajrussel

[Strange]

Why shouldn't I?

 

Just to be clear, what I was referring to was the use of the name "big bang". This should not be used to refer to any initial creation event (if there was one). The big bang model describes the universe we see now. It is a model of a universe expanding and cooling.

 

Speculate away about what might have happened at the start, but there isn't really any good evidence (hence all the different ideas you have encountered).

[Ten oz]

Time did not exist at the moment of the "Big Bang". None of our physics apply. Time theoretically doesn't exist inside a black hole. Is that enough information to draw a conclusion? I don't think so. Black hole have massive amounts of gravity. Like time gravity did not exist at the moment of the "Big Bang". It is unclear what happens to any of the forces inside a black hole.

Saying "I don't know" can feel unsatifying but it is often the only honest response.

[imatfaal]

Time did not exist at the moment of the "Big Bang". None of our physics apply.

Yep - the moment of the big bang and "before" is terra incognita; our physics may apply or may not, we have no way of knowing or even validly speculating.

 

 

Time theoretically doesn't exist inside a black hole. Is that enough information to draw a conclusion? I don't think so.

 

Why not? I don't know of any reason why time would not exist within a black hole - and if there were no time you wouldnt get that funky switching of coordinates in Penrose diagrams that is so coool.

 

 

Black hole have massive amounts of gravity.

Just as much gravity as any other object of similar mass - but black holes have that mass within the sphere marked by the schwarztchild radius; it is just you can get closer to the source of gravitational attraction with a black hole than you can with normal massive objects.