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What does standby time mean?

If the Universe is expanding, does it mean that Time too is expanding with Space? What happens if Time expands?

  • Basically, I am unable to comprehend the meaning of expansion of time..... does it mean total quantity of time is increasing or does it mean that time is becoming less dense..... if latter, what is meant by density of time...... if density gets lean and thin, would it mean that we would need more time to do the same job?

  • Answer:

    What a great question! Much of your confusion is due to your confusing time and space. Time doesn't expand or contract. Time, however DOES slow down (in Einstein's 'relative' way) with increased gravitation. I'll come back here in a moment. Expansion is a function of 'space'. Often people hear us weirdos speak of "space/time". That doesn't mean that time and space are the same thing. It means that these are two of the fundamental (and dimensional) 'things' in the universe. Every thing and every part of our 'physical universe' has some dimensional aspects of these phenomena. Perhaps it may be easier to say everything in the physical universe has some units of this stuff. They all have a height, width, depth, a relative where and a 'when'. Now, there ARE some real, but intangible things like dimensionless forces (such as neutrinos), that do not occupy physical space, but have a presence in time (and a location in space). There are also forces like photons, that can be emitted, converted or absorbed, but are ageless. They have dimensional qualities of physical space, in that they have specific wavelengths, but they travel at the speed of light, and therefore are mass-less and timeless. But I'm getting away from your question. An 'expanding universe' is a function of 3 dimensional space. It basically means that everything is moving away from everything else. Now, recall that I said that time (actually, the relative relationship of time with space) is a function of gravity. Gravity is a function of the physical distance between bodies of mass, which gets weaker as the distance increases. Therefore, to answer your question... if the universe is expanding, then universal gravitation is decreasing, which would mean that universal time is (relatively) speeding up! BUT... not "expanding", which it cannot do, because it is NOT (and is distinct from) space. This is VERY cool, but is understandably convoluted. So, if you didn't follow all of this, let me know, and I'll try to state it in some other way. Again... GREAT question! :D

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great question. well the expansion of the universe is only really noticeable between two far apart objects. i dont think the effects of expansion are really noticeable in shorter distances. also i think the expansion is faster at the edge of the universe. however, space-time is a tool which means space and time are NOT necessarily two inseparable entities. now since space is expanding, im guessing that the time it takes to travel a distance at a set RATE of acceleration is always increasing.... this means your RATE of accelerating would need to keep increasing just to offset the expansion of the universe, and to travel the same distance in the same amount of time as when the acceleration of the universe was lower. basically the acceleration of your acceleration has to keep rising to travel a distance at a certain time to offset expansion. which leads me to speculate that travel to the edge of the universe is impossible because not only do you have to keep accelerating to match the expansion, but the edge of the universe is moving at that increasing rate acceleration at a even higher rate acceleration because the edge is traveling away from everything else the fastest.

emperor

Since space is expanding, perhaps time is slowing!? Seems like it is for me. Although that does not explain why I don't remember important dates till AFTER they are gone!

phil8656

Superb answer, Black & Blues, without jargon and showmanship or arrogance about your knowledge and understanding of this really intriguing subject. After reading the answer, I am wondering what is implied when time is speeding up. I get a feeling it would perhaps mean that it would take more time to do the same travel or job as envisaged in the question by Small himself. Can Black & Blues kindly edit his answer to confirm or clarify on this please? My sincere thanks to Small for raising such a wonderful question and to Black & Blues for giving such a great answer.

Bhagyalakshmi

Don't try to put time into 3 dimensions, i.e. time cannot have a density. Time, at least as we experience it, is a single dimension. Hence expanding & contracting simply means how fast time passes for us. To understand it's relation to space imagine you are traveling 1 lap per minute in a circle.. Now if I were to make your stopwatch run twice as fast, you would suddenly think you were going 1 lap every 2 minutes. This would be equivalent to having a larger lap. Hence affecting your sense of time, affects your sense of space.

Phoenix Quill

It is great question, i think the basic answer is yes . That question is very deep, and i think there is a lot more to it, than what is on the surface.

Kevin7

The answer is... [1] Time is a "man made concept" to measure the events taking place in the universe. [2] The Universe is expanding constantly and uniformly in "all directions" . . [3] The distance between the Earth and the Sun is increasing "slowly and steadily" due to "universal expansion ". The distance today is 8.317 minutes [light year Scale] will be increased to 9 or "10 minutes" after millions of years from now ! [4] Earth -Sun distance: 1 AU = 8.317 ly minute An astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU, au or a.u.) is a unit of length equal to about 149,597,870.7 kilometres (92,955,807.27 miles) or approximately the mean Earth–Sun distance. 1 AU = 149,597,870.700 ± 0.003 km ≈ 92,955,807.273 ± 0.002 mi ≈ 8.317 light minutes ≈ 499 light-seconds So again the "unit of length" at present "1 AU" and the "LIGHT YEAR" will have to be redefined [after billions of years] to bring it to a new standard unit for the purpose of the measurement of "galactic measurement" . [5] Consider the size of UNIVERSE: What was the volume of universe, 1 trillion years ago in the "PAST"!, has been changed to bigger value today at "PRESENT", which will be OBSERVED and CONFIRMED after 1 trillion years from now in "FUTURE", when we receive respective light from that respective part of the universe. [6] As you know, that at PRESENT we are "observing a semi expanded universe size" of billions of years PAST universe and not the fully expanded TRUE universe of TODAY. When we take the LIGHT as the source of our galactic measurement , we FAIL and CONFUSED ! since the speed of LIGHT in {TIME} as LIGHT YEAR is very very very SMALL unit for galactic measurements.

nlp

Yes, time is expanding. Yesterday, there was only 13.7 billion years of time. Today, there is 13.7 billion years + 1 day. In fact, for every 24 hours that goes by, time expands by 1 day.

Morningfox

that a mind-blowing question according 2 big bang theory.the matter in space expands due to dense amount expansion due to pressure when it expands the bilateral dimension in space or the 10 th dimension in hyper space is simply a contradiction so time is only a hypothitical concept to explain physical and practical factors and so the universe expansion has nothing to do with time i really appreciate ur question........its really superb......

Tamizhvaanan

Space and time are 4 dimensions interwoven quantities. So time too is expanding with space. Prove it. If one does that, he/she is proving general theory of relativity.

chanljkk

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