Must there be dark time?

geelsu

We've got dark everything else: matter, energy, etc. Another thread even mentioned something about dark anti-matter. What about time? Does anyone know of a working model or any theoretical research about dark time.

Flatland

What exactly do you mean by "dark time?"

geelsu

I really don't know what I mean. I haven't even formulated a descent hypothesis. I don't think I would call it anti-time or time flowing in reverse. I'm just chewing on the concept a bit and trying to decide if there is even a possibility for it. If all the dark matter is there, unseen, and dark energy models continue to refine, then what perhaps a dark time might also be "out there."

Pengwuino

Don't get worked up on these names that Physicists think up for various phenomenon that we observe. We could have easily called it dark energy and dark matter something else and no one would have thought there's a relationship between the two (which there is not) or any family of "dark" phenomenon that needs explaining. It's just a name.

geelsu

Excellent response. Thank you. Kinda like blue moon and blue jeans, two totally unrelated things that just happen to have a blue descriptive. Alas, I bid adieu to dark time ... unless I have a really bad weekend. :)

voxilla

It's very fashionable to call anything we don't get a grip on to be dark.

SHISHKABOB

same thing with black holes, they aren't really holes, or at least I don't think they are "necessarily" or whatever

regardless, the reason why we call them holes is because if you looked at one, all you'd see is a "hole" in the background, and it'd be black

salvestrom

Dark Fluid. Tries to explain space as a fluid with dark energy and dark matter two things caused by the fluids behaviour in the absence or presence of matter.

Not saying I'm a proponent. Not even sure if the paper I came across was published.

If dark time existed it would likely be a descriptive for a region of space in which time doesn't work the same as everywhere else. Not likely to ever be found, but there ya go.

DaleSwanson

As has been pointed out, the 'dark' in dark matter or dark energy is really more of 'unknown'. As in, matter which is evidently there, but we have not been able to observe. In order for the concept of dark time to be introduced we'd have to discover evidence for time that should exist but we had not directly observed and could not explain.

Oldfart

All of which makes me wonder about dark space, and dark spacetime. Where dark spacetime curves away from massive bodies unless they are made of dark matter. Makes my head hurt...

phinds

You should be careful with your terminology. There IS a "dark time" in the history of the universe (after the surface of last scattering and before the creation of stars) so that term is already taken in cosmology. You'd have to call what you're talking about "strange time" or something.

salvestrom

Don't they call that the 'dark ages'? I guess since one's a reference to post-roman britain and the other's got a tenuous link to Star Wars I know which I'd go with.

I suppose it's too similiar either way.

Time's already a pretty strange thing, though.

Chronos

I believe the period just after recombination is referred to as the cosmic dark ages.

phinds

Yeah, I realize now that I saw a reference early on that did call it the "dark time" but I believe "dark ages" is the more common name, now that you mention it. Thanks.

CosmicEye

I think its an interesting question, but time is not a physical object that we can see

phinds

Can't see quarks either. Should we ignore them? We can measure both, so why ignore one and not the other? Or was that not your point?

MrGodParticle

im pretty sure that if there is time in space at all, then it would be dark spacetime because space is all dark and it is made up to dark fluid and dark matter but im an amateur so im not exactly sure