Time is it moving slower than it was in the young universe?

[ACB]

Thank you for your very informative post. I was particularly interested in the following:

Originally Posted by pagan

So don't think that the difference is just down to the accelerating time dilation periods themselves, as seperate from the space between them. This is where the short cut in time occurs, but it is dependent upon the distance between them too.

I think this is the key to the next question I was going to ask, which is as follows.

Suppose the moving twin travels to, and returns from, a point twice as far from the earth as that in the previous example. The velocity, and the acceleration procedures at the beginning, middle and end of the journey, are exactly the same as in the previous case; but now the required advance in earth time, as observed by the traveller, is considerably greater.

If the rapid advance in observed earth time (from the traveller's point of view) can only take place during the periods of acceleration, how can a greater advance be achieved in the second case if the accelerations are identical in the two cases?

For example (and I appreciate, in the light of your remarks, that I am over-simplifying):

In the first case, the traveller ages 2 years in all, and when he returns, the earth twin has aged 20 years. On the outward leg (while at constant velocity) the traveller observes the earth twin age 0.1 year, and on the return leg he observes him age another 0.1 year, so there are 19.8 years to be made up during the accelerations.

In the second case, the traveller ages 4 years in all, and the earth twin 40 years. On the outward leg the traveller observes the earth twin age 0.2 years, and on the return leg he observes him age another 0.2 years. So there are now 39.6 years to be made up during the accelerations. Yet the durations of the accelerations, and the forces involved in them, are identical to those in the first case.

From what you have said, I realise that the above figures will be somewhat inaccurate, but I am primarily concerned with the basic question of how the same accelerations can give rise to different observations. What particularly puzzles me is that the amount by which the earth twin's clock advances (from the traveller's point of view) during the turnaround seems to depend on future events. The above figures of 19.8 and 39.6 years are derived from the later (contingent) fact that when they meet again the earth twin has aged 20 and 40 years respectively. But the traveller could have changed his mind during the return journey, and decided not to go back to earth after all. How could the earlier observed advances of 19.8 or 39.6 years (or whatever the true figures are) be accounted for then?

I assume that the answer has to do with your statement that the distance between the twins is a relevant factor. Any clarification of the specific problem I have raised above would be helpful.

[pagan]

ACB
I assume that the answer has to do with your statement that the distance between the twins is a relevant factor. Any clarification of the specific problem I have raised above would be helpful.

Yes thats right. The thing is that in relativity we cannot seperate time dilation from space and velocity (and acceleration and mass). If we intellectually conceive that space is a kind of inert platform for things to happen, then we are tempted to take an objective perspective such that time dilation and other effects are caused not by space. Its a free floating gods eye view. Rushing intellectually from one observer to another through space would thus be seen as having no effect upon the factors acting within the universe. (Similarly for time, ie rushing backwards and forwards in time would have no effect either on physical measurements.) But that free floating objective classical view ends with relativity. The rushing about in intellectual space and time to have a look at what is 'really' happening has to be accompanied by shifts in frames of reference in relativity and the measurements of reality change with it. (intellectually speaking within the model that is, as well as reality itself).

A scientific model is not reality but a model of reality. If the model means that a change of reference frame changes the appearance of reality in that model then a key aspect of 'objectivity' has been lost. This is why i raise in other threads the concept of 'now'. 'now' according to science is as naive as 'gods make thunder'. We conceive of 'now' (the ever changing present) as simultaneous across the universe. Universal simultaneity is mathematically impossible under relativity. If A is simultaneous with B for observer X, then it can be A before B for observer Y, and B before A for observer Z. This has lead many scientists to actually believe that the 'now' is an illusion in a block spacetime universe. The future and past exist, the naivety of 'now' (that demarcates them) is an illusion.

ACB
What particularly puzzles me is that the amount by which the earth twin's clock advances (from the traveller's point of view) during the turnaround seems to depend on future events.

Hopefully my previous comments help to at least get the ideas that create your intellectual conflict, which is very understandable. None of us can get our 'naive' heads around it....... it is non classical. And this is special relativity! GR is much more complex.

ACB
But the traveller could have changed his mind during the return journey, and decided not to go back to earth after all. How could the earlier observed advances of 19.8 or 39.6 years (or whatever the true figures are) be accounted for then?

Because if the traveller changed his mind and didn't return, then the compared measurements between the twins remain virtual. As such they can yield contradictory non absolute non classical comparisons. Each can make virtual measurements such that one says M>N and the other N>M. Only when they are in coincident time frames do the virtual measurements for each have to sum over the different (and contradictory) histories to reach agreement. Thats why i distinguish between actual and virtual comparisons. Actual measurement comparisons have to be mutually consistent. Virtual ones do not. From one actual comparison to the next actual comparison, the summation of different virtual measurements (history) have to come back to agreement.

This is why the early universe or any other spacetime position in the universe can appear (virtually) to run slower or faster. With special relativity (velocity time dilation) each effect is slower. But when we bring in acceleration and gravity, then one can see slower and the other faster. However, acceleration and gravity are not equivalent. For example sitting in our chairs. According to GR there is no force of gravity. Gravity does not pull us to the ground. It is the ground that pushes us up. Classically if you have an unopposed force on a mass then it will accelerate. That does not necessarily occur in GR. In GR a net force on a mass will deviate it from its geodesic (which isn't necessarily a classical straight line constant velocity). Our geodesic as we sit on our chairs is to accelerate towards the center of the earth. We don't because a net force (from the springiness of the ground upon us) stops us following that geodesic.

In Newtons theories it necessarily followed that any mass following a path of acceleration (eg an orbit, parabola, etc) had a net force acting upon it, because the geodesic in newton's classical space and time model was motion of constant velocity. (not to be confused with constant speed of course, as with circular orbits). In GR the geodesics can be curved accelerating paths without a net force acting. ie gravity. Gravity is not a force (at least classically speaking) in GR.

I don't think many people realise that GR is also non classical, but in a different way to QM. Einstein accepted GR. Compared to QM he felt it was classical. But really its a difference in non classicality. The reason is as follows....

If in a region of spacetime there exists two events A and B, such that it is conceivably possible to link them with a light ray, then it follows that one occurs before the other for all virtual observers. If under such conditions A occurs before B for observer X (virtually) then for all other observers travelling less than the speed of light relative to X then A occurs before B. The different observers would generally not agree on the virtual measurement of time between them, but all would agree that A occurred before B (by however short or long a length of time). This is crucial to retaining a belief in causality. That is why einstein loved GR but hated QM. The non classical probabilistic nature of QM threatened causality for einstein. He wouldn't let it go. Spacetime objectivity he could live without, but not the philosophical threat to causality that QM poses.

But GR does undermine our naive intellectual conception of objectivity. The relationship between observer and measurement is non classical in GR. It is also non classical in QM. But they are different. That difference is reflected in the mathematics that tries to encapsulate each different non classical model and is why it makes them very difficult to unite. Not least is the concept of simultaneity. Universal simultaneity is inconceivable in GR. It is necessary in QM in the understanding of entangled states!

However there is a possible saving grace. The simultaneity in QM cannot transfer information. That is why information has become central to theoretical physics. It also brings in another possibly non classical area of physics ...... entropy. Science is wrestling with concepts of classical and non classical forms of information. Classical information emerges from large scale non classical information.

[Alan McDougall]

Originally Posted by ABC
In the second case, the traveller ages 4 years in all, and the earth twin 40 years. On the outward leg the traveller observes the earth twin age 0.2 years, and on the return leg he observes him age another 0.2 years. So there are now 39.6 years to be made up during the accelerations. Yet the durations of the accelerations, and the forces involved in them, are identical to those in the first case.

Nicely put, a lot of physics makes no sense even though the time dilation has been proved by comparing two atomic clocks, one of a rocket and another stationary on the earth

[Alan McDougall]

Theory Of Infinite Time

Posted by Vincent Mianji on August 01, 2002:

Time is infinite meaning time has never started nor will it stop.

If it did have a starting point, at what time did it start? There must be time to start time if it had been started, and if time would stop then nothing will exist as there will be no time to keep everything there, and yes there still will be time if time had stopped so you can’t say time had a starting point or an end.
Time keeps all things in motion, if there is no time then nothing will exist – not even black!

Time has many infinite time dimensions. This means it can be as slow as possible, but never to zero stop, and that it can be as fast as possible, but only below the speed of light. 0<T<C.

Time is a force that allows movement to occur to all moving things.
This force can be overcome or you can allow it to overcome you. This means if you overcome your own time dimension, then you are traveling faster than the time dimension you were in.

As a result, you will go into another time dimension faster than your own, so you will think that you are going at a normal rate but you see your time dimension i.e. Earth, as going very slowly. On the other hand, the people from the dimension you were previously in would think that you are going faster meaning you also aged more!

This works the other way too. If you traveled slower than your own time dimension then you would be in a time dimension slower than the time dimension you were previously in, and as a result, you would see the people back in the normal time dimension i.e. Earth, moving very fast, while you went at normal rate of time.

On the other hand, the people in the normal time dimension would see you move very slowly inside while they think they are at a normal rate of time.

If this is to happen, then you can be able to time travel to the future (if moved at the rate very close to zero movement i.e. 0.0000000000000001 second).

Traveling back in time is impossible. The reason is that if we did go back in time, then we would be going at a time dimension much slower than zero, going minus back, which is impossible. And even if it were, you’d be stuck there for infinity, as you’d be just getting minus faster and faster that will never reach zero, and would be a constant loop over, and over, that never reaches the future. Besides, once something happens, it cannot be reversed due to the same reason.

Also, Einstein says time halts at the speed of light. If we traveled faster than the speed of light, then we might enter the past...

You may think that time is ‘not a push or a pull, therefore it is not a force’, this is not actually quite true. It is pushing when you travel slower and pulling as you travel faster.

This means, that to overcome time force, you must apply acceleration as a force. This also means you cannot calculate the force of time as it is infinite, or do any calculation that will prove what speed time is going but to compare it to other speeds of time because the speed of time is infinite at the speed of light, and never to zero point.

This means that speed is related to time.

When the time forces are equal to the speed forces opposing it, then it is said that forces opposing time will be back to its original time dimension from which it came from. In other words, if you went into the future, to try to go back you have to slow time down, so you have to go faster, when the time is just right, then it cancels each force out and you can be back to your normal time dimension. Note that this is not traveling back in time!

The number of time dimensions is infinite. This means that you cannot count how many time dimensions as it goes on forever.

Time has intervals. This means that the time dimensions have intervals between
each other. In other words, it is the time difference between each time dimension. But really, there isn’t any because the difference is so small, a time dimension could equal that difference which again has interval difference that just goes on for infinity but gets smaller in difference each time.

Time force relies on itself to keep it going. This means that every time dimension there are, they are all needed to rely on each other to keep time itself going. If this is true, then time is infinite which is true and so this is true.

If time relies on itself to be infinite, then that must mean there is a loop of time.
Time is always everywhere. Wherever anything is, there will always be time.
If time exists anywhere, then in a black hole where they say there is no time, there has to be time, or everything is nothing. It only slows it down so much it hardly moves but still does move.

[pagan]

well thinking about time is very confusing for sure.

Actually there is no law in relativity theory that says that something cannot travel faster than the speed of light. The insurmountable problem appears to be going from less than to greater than the speed of light, and visa versa.

What is latent in relativity therefore is the possible break down of causality. If something is travelling faster than the speed of light and two events in the universe are measured to have happened in connection with it, then it is impossible to say that either event occured before the other from the onlooking perspective of travelling less than the speed of light. For 'connection' velocities between two events A and B that is greater than c, then there is no universal agreement between virtual observers that A occured before B, B before A, or both were simultaneous. Thus the connection is non causal. Causality chains are defined in terms of one event necessarily occuring before the other in time.

Of course we are happy to stay within the realm of less than or equal to c within present science, so relativity doesn't contradict causality so long as we stay there in our model of the universe.

With regards to travelling back in time, actually there doesn't necessarily have to be a causal contradiction. If an observer A measures virtually (non coincident time frame) that observer B has gone backwards in time, then so long as B never meets up with A and retains a negative time component, then a causal contradiction is avoided. Or to put another way. If B is seen to go backwards in time by virtual measurement by A, and then B meets up again with A, so long as (by comparison with the twin paradox) that the journey required will change the virtual measurements such that when they meet the histories will mutually agree that they both have now moved forward in time (between departure and return), then each has returned to an actual causally consistent time frame relationship. Nor does the transfer of information from B to A necessarily create a causal contradiction, because the information relates to a vastly different time frame and so long as A cannot act or communicate an act upon that information to create a contradiction then causality is preserved. The crucial factor being that it takes time to communicate information and any possible causal contradiction has to remain so for at least that length of communication time.

Such journeys are however outside special relativity. They typically require observers entering spacetime regions between two revolving blackholes, and are highly theoretical.

Interesting is the new research re black holes and information. Hawking a few years back thought that information disappeared when entering black holes. Susskind said that that would lead to a breakdown in the laws of physics. Since then they now both agree that information is not lost when entering a blackhole, because all blackholes are evaporating and that lets the information out, albeit highly jumbled up. This is where entropy comes in.

What i find interesting about that idea, is that is it not theoretically possible therefore that 'observations' within black holes is theoretically possible from the outside by disentangling the information from the evaporation process? Such information it seems to me is intrinsically different to information conveyed by light. Thus it may not be causally consistent, which means it has a different relationship to time.

[HexHammer]

Originally Posted by Alan McDougall

When the universe was very young gravity was unimaginably greater than it is now; thus according to Einstein time must have moved much much slower than it does now; in the very much less dense universe of the present or now.

If the above is true how did we arrive at our present moment and if we are in an ever accelerating time zone, due to the thinning out of our universe, due to expansion, at almost zero gravity would time not speed up toward infinity?

My point is; time moves slower in colossal gravity fields, how did our universe overcome this apparent paradox in its creation?, because physics tells us in an infinite gravity field like, the singularity, time must have stood still; but it did not luckily for us

Einstein belivers might say that time might move slower, imo it's only our inaccurate preception of time and chronometer-devices which are to blame.

Imo time in itself doesn't excist, therefore there are no paradoxes.

Just because some illustrate electrons orbiting in a perfect circle doesn't mean it's actually circling in a perfect circle.
What's I'm trying to say, where the hell did the infinitive gravity field occure from being a hyper giant to being a singularity? It's just a brainfart of n00b sientists.

[Alan McDougall]

What really perplexes me about space time, is the fact that time flows slower in a larger gravity Field than it does when compared to time flowing on a lesser gravity field. Inside a black hole time stops.

At the moment of the big bang singularity, the gravity in its vicinity must have been infinite. All logic based on Einstein relativity time should have been static at the moment of creation

Yet against current physics time must have flowed at the moment of creation , how could time flow in an unimaginably huge gravity of the creation event.. If time did not flow entropy could not have come into existence, thereby allowing cause and effect to happen finally leading to life on planet earth

[xris]

Thanks Alan, I have asked the same question constantly. When we look back at the universes expansion and they tell us it is 13 billion years old , is it from our perspective of time ? Time is only relative to our experience. I dont think you can look at the history of events and give defined answer on the passing of time.

[pagan]

xris
Time is only relative to our experience. I dont think you can look at the history of events and give defined answer on the passing of time.

thats right. 'experienced' time is real time. 'looking at history and elsewhere' time is virtual time. They are not the same. Travel to elsewhere and experienced time remains the same.

Virtual time is a measurement, not an experience. Hence looking back or elsewhere and time can appear to be slower or faster by measurement. Measurement is not experience.

[xris]

Originally Posted by pagan

thats right. 'experienced' time is real time. 'looking at history and elsewhere' time is virtual time. They are not the same. Travel to elsewhere and experienced time remains the same.

Virtual time is a measurement, not an experience. Hence looking back or elsewhere and time can appear to be slower or faster by measurement. Measurement is not experience.

So looking at an event in history can not give you a true picture of how that time past relevant to your concept. It could be slower or faster than it appears to be? is that right?