What is time?April 13, 2005The concept of time is self-evident. An hour consists of a certain number of minutes, a day of hours and a year of days. But we rarely think about the fundamental nature of time. Time is passing non-stop, and we follow it with clocks and calendars. Yet we cannot study it with a microscope or experiment with it. And it still keeps passing. We just cannot say what exactly happens when time passes. Time is represented through change, such as the circular motion of the moon around the earth. The passing of time is indeed closely connected to the concept of space. According to the general theory of relativity, space, or the universe, emerged in the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago. Before that, all matter was packed into an extremely tiny dot. That dot also contained the matter that later came to be the sun, the earth and the moon - the heavenly bodies that tell us about the passing of time. Before the Big Band, there was no space or time. "In the theory of relativity, the concept of time begins with the Big Bang the same way as parallels of latitude begin at the North Pole. You cannot go further north than the North Pole," says Kari Enqvist, Professor of Cosmology at the University of Helsinki. One of the most peculiar qualities of time is the fact that it is measured by motion and it also becomes evident through motion. According to the general theory of relativity, the development of space may result in the collapse of the universe. All matter would shrink into a tiny dot again, which would end the concept of time as we know it. "Latest observations, however, do not support the idea of collapse, rather inter-galactic distances grow at a rapid pace," Enqvist says. Helsingin yliopisto (University of Helsinki) |
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| Related Big Bang Current Events and Big Bang News Articles Exoplanets clue to sun's curious chemistry "For almost 10 years we have tried to find out what distinguishes stars with planetary systems from their barren cousins," says Garik Israelian, lead author of a paper appearing this week in the journal Nature. "We have now found that the amount of lithium in Sun-like stars depends on whether or not they have planets." Rapid star formation spotted in 'stellar nurseries' of infant galaxies The Universe's infant galaxies enjoyed rapid growth spurts forming stars like our sun at a rate of up to 50 stars a year, according to scientists at Durham University. 'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. Blast from the past gives clues about early universe Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have gained tantalizing insights into the nature of the most distant object ever observed in the Universe -- a gigantic stellar explosion known as a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB). Vanderbilt astronomers participate in new search for dark energy The most ambitious attempt yet to trace the history of the universe has seen "first light." The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), took its first astronomical data on the night of Sept. 14-15 at the Sloan Foundation telescope in New Mexico. James Webb Space Telescope Begins to Take Shape at Goddard NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is starting to come together. A major component of the telescope, the Integrated Science Instrument Module structure, recently arrived at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. for testing in the Spacecraft Systems Development and Integration Facility. To understand the universe, science calls on the ultrasmall Will the universe expand outward for all of eternity and end in a vast, dark, cold, sterile, diffuse nothingness? Or will the "Big Bang" - the gargantuan explosion that formed the universe 14 billion years ago - end in the "Big Crunch?" First Black Holes Born Starving The first black holes in the universe had dramatic effects on their surroundings despite the fact that they were small and grew very slowly, according to recent supercomputer simulations carried out by astrophysicists Marcelo Alvarez and Tom Abel of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, jointly located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, and John Wise, formerly of KIPAC and now of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. First black holes kept to a strict diet, study shows A new supercomputer simulation designed to track the fate of the universe's first black holes finds that, counter to expectations, they couldn't efficiently gorge themselves on nearby gas. Simulations Illuminate Universe's First Twin Stars The earliest stars in the universe formed not only as individuals, but sometimes also as twins, according to a paper published today in Science Express. More Big Bang Current Events and Big Bang News Articles |
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