Is Time Slowing Down? Scientists Weigh In

[elbeasto]

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/scientist-says.html - Time slowing down
http://www.opfocus.org/index.php?topic=story&v=8&s=4 - Light slowing down

I read these articles some time ago. I was just wondering if anyone else has put any thought into this. Anyone have any reason why this cannot be true?

 

[Oldfart]

Interesting stuff! I'm disappointed that no one has commented...c'mon, people...

To me, the slowing of time seems more sensible than dark energy.

 

[JDługosz]

In the first link, not enough information is given. What does it mean for time to "slow down" yet allow us to see the effects of it? In any case, we still have the issue that the universal expansion rate has changed and was not always speeding up.

Second link: see other discussions on this forum. You can't just change the speed of light. If you changed things to make the measured speed of light different, other things would change too. It certainly hasn't changed in the last 30 years!

 

[gk007]

Even if the speed of light slowed down "c" would still be 186,000miles/second, its just that we would have to separate the universal speed limit from the speed of light.

 

[kaos86]

Interesting. I think I have some sort of idea.

 

[presbyope]

In the first link, not enough information is given. What does it mean for time to "slow down" yet allow us to see the effects of it? In any case, we still have the issue that the universal expansion rate has changed and was not always speeding up.

Here's the original paper. I don't understand it, but it seems to be saying that the universe is embedded in hyperspace with coordinate ξ and the proper time of the universe T(ξ) is slowing down with ξ. It gives a proof that loss of time has to be smooth (in the sense of a smooth graph) so we would experience it as a slowing down of time rather than just having time stop. Slowing down of time is measurable as an acceleration of expansion.

If that's a correct reading, it's extremely sloppy to change coordinates without telling anyone. Then again they'd probably slap me for calling their theory hyperspace :-/

http://prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v77/i2/e027501