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Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders |
Misguided 11/04/2004 04:08 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders The big bang could be a normal event in the natural evolution of the universe that will happen repeatedly over incredibly vast time scales as the universe expands, empties out and cools off, according to two University of Chicago physicists. "We like to say that the big bang is nothing special in the history of our universe," said Sean Carroll, an Assistant Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago. Carroll and University of Chicago graduate student Jennifer Chen are scheduled to post a paper describing their ideas at [ link to arxiv.org] Thursday evening. Carroll and Chenīs research addresses two ambitious questions: why does time flow in only one direction, and could the big bang have arisen from an energy fluctuation in empty space that conforms to the known laws of physics? The question about the arrow of time has vexed physicists for a century because "for the most part the fundamental laws of physics donīt distinguish between past and future. Theyīre time-symmetric," Carroll said. And closely bound to the issue of time is the concept of entropy, a measure of disorder in the universe. As physicist Ludwig Boltzmann showed a century ago, entropy naturally increases with time. "You can turn an egg into an omelet, but not an omelet into an egg," Carroll said. But the mystery remains as to why entropy was low in the universe to begin with. The difficulty of that question has long bothered scientists, who most often simply leave it as a puzzle to answer in the future. Carroll and Chen have made an attempt to answer it now. Previous researchers have approached questions about the big bang with the assumption that entropy in the universe is finite. Carroll and Chen take the opposite approach. "Weīre postulating that the entropy of the universe is infinite. It could always increase," Chen said. To successfully explain why the universe looks as it does today, both approaches must accommodate a process called inflation, which is an extension of the big bang theory. Astrophysicists invented inflation theory so that they could explain the universe as it appears today. According to inflation, the universe underwent a period of massive expansion in a fraction of a second after the big bang. But thereīs a problem with that scenario: a "skeleton in the closet," Carroll said. To begin inflation, the universe would have encompassed a microscopically tiny patch in an extremely unlikely configuration, not what scientists would expect from a randomly chosen initial condition. Carroll and Chen argue that a generic initial condition is actually likely to resemble cold, empty space-not an obviously favorable starting point for the onset of inflation. In a universe of finite entropy, some scientists have proposed that a random fluctuation could trigger inflation. This, however, would require the molecules of the universe to fluctuate from a high-entropy state into one of low entropy-a statistical longshot. "The conditions necessary for inflation are not that easy to start," Carroll said. "Thereīs an argument that itīs easier just to have our universe appear from a random fluctuation than to have inflation begin from a random fluctuation." Carroll and Chenīs scenario of infinite entropy is inspired by the finding in 1998 that the universe will expand forever because of a mysterious force called "dark energy." Under these conditions, the natural configuration of the universe is one that is almost empty. "In our current universe, the entropy is growing and the universe is expanding and becoming emptier," Carroll said. But even empty space has faint traces of energy that fluctuate on the subatomic scale. As suggested previously by Jaume Garriga of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University, these flucuations can generate their own big bangs in tiny areas of the universe, widely separated in time and space. Carroll and Chen extend this idea in dramatic fashion, suggesting that inflation could start "in reverse" in the distant past of our universe, so that time could appear to run backwards (from our perspective) to observers far in our past. Regardless of the direction they run in, the new universes created in these big bangs will continue the process of increasing entropy. In this never-ending cycle, the universe never achieves equilibrium. If it did achieve equilibrium, nothing would ever happen. There would be no arrow of time. "Thereīs no state you can go to that is maximal entropy. You can always increase the entropy more by creating a new universe and allowing it to expand and cool off," Carroll explained. [ link to www.spaceref.com] |
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Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders At last, something NOT about the election and interesting. |
Mim 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders One word - Multiverse |
Misguided 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders After thinking on this awile, I have come to the conclusion Carroll and Chen are īs |
azteca 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders multiverse is cool. |
Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders multiverse is one word??? |
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Dr. Who 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders |
Einstein 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders Time is the decay of energy into matter, the half life will be marked by the universe halting in expansion, and falling in on itself. |
Faydra 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders The Titor Meter is in full swing again!
{.../.} |
Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders JUST ANOTHER THEORY~ |
99% 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders In one skit from a 1940s "Three Stooges" short in which the trio are hired to rennovate a residence Larry while painting a floor finds he has "painted himself in a corner". |
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Breaker Breaker 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders LOL, they are time symmetric because we are īinī time... |
Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders "Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction."
If you have to think about this, there is no hope for you. |
Niki 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders After thinking on this awile, I have come to the conclusion Carroll and Chen are Misguided, after reading this I came to the same conclusion. Good to post those BS. It shows in simple and short with what we are confronted with. |
Reemer (nli) 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders "Time" does not exist, it is merely a system created by man that allows for us to organize mental thought to recall on events. Why is it that we say we are "growing older" and not merely "changing". Everything in the universe is cyclical, isnīt it? And you all thought I was just a warmongering viloent asshole incapable of deep thought... Donīt piss me off. |
not so shallow reemer nli 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders
Thatīs pretty shallow suggesting that man invented time... of coarse that how bush and his crew think. man hasnīt invented anything, only discovers what is already there and available meaning that we cant do anything that this universe isnīt already configured to do. |
Dan Rather 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders Al Gore said he invented the Internet so I suppose George W. Bush could have invented time.
My experts will authenticate that idea. |
Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders Time does exist. Einstein or one of his undergrads showed that if it were possible fpr a solid spaceship to travel at the speed of light, time would stop. The moment the "warp speed" was activated, all time progression would cease, the crew would be locked into that precise moment, and they would become infinite in diameter and smashed flat as a pancake, but since time would not exist, and infinity is an undefined value, thereīs no telling what would happen. They would probably go insane and shit in their pants. |
Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders What is the significance of that? Simple. The Creator has designed a set of rules that allow utilization of basic technology to be used for living here, on Earth, but He also designed the rules to breakdown and become meaningless whenever attempts are made for escaping our....home/prison. |
i su[pp]ose 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders Poor poor scientists, dont have what it takes to prove anything important |
Niki 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders
"Time" does not exist, it is merely a system created by man that allows for us to organize mental thought to recall on events. Reemer time is a theoretical tool, a frame in which movement can be masured. Time is wether bending, stretching nor reversing. The only thing that bends, stretches or reverses is the stupidity of folks who thinks that time does this. |
Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders Some of these chatters should remain seen but not heard. |
bill?? frank??? anyone??? 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders i suppose that curious george might have what it takes to invent WWIII |
Reemer 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders Okay, What the hell good is time to a man hanging out on a deserted Island. Why in the Hell would you even care to mark it, other than you would want to be able to tell the people who eventually rescue you how long youvīe been there.
Hell up until the 1880īs the railroads didnīt even have a sytem to track time zones.
What does it matter? |
Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders TIME keeps on Drippin, Drippin ,Drippin.... |
BONES 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders
If I get rid of all clocks and other ways to "tell" time, except of course for the solor system. And I live my life by the rising and setting of the sun but never count using a system to mark time, will I age? I know I will change, but will I "grow" old? |
Bogus Tarbaby 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders Without the man made construct of time your paycheck would always be getting fucked up. |
Anonymous Coward 12/08/2005 10:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders good,when thatīs figured out they can tell me why I only have to jiggle the toilet handle on even numbered dates. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 78069536 Norway 02/29/2020 02:34 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders The big bang could be a normal event in the natural evolution of the universe that will happen repeatedly over incredibly vast time scales as the universe expands, empties out and cools off, according to two University of Chicago physicists. "We like to say that the big bang is nothing special in the history of our universe," said Sean Carroll, an Assistant Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago. Carroll and University of Chicago graduate student Jennifer Chen are scheduled to post a paper describing their ideas at [ link to arxiv.org] Thursday evening. Carroll and Chen´s research addresses two ambitious questions: why does time flow in only one direction, and could the big bang have arisen from an energy fluctuation in empty space that conforms to the known laws of physics? The question about the arrow of time has vexed physicists for a century because "for the most part the fundamental laws of physics don´t distinguish between past and future. They´re time-symmetric," Carroll said. And closely bound to the issue of time is the concept of entropy, a measure of disorder in the universe. As physicist Ludwig Boltzmann showed a century ago, entropy naturally increases with time. "You can turn an egg into an omelet, but not an omelet into an egg," Carroll said. But the mystery remains as to why entropy was low in the universe to begin with. The difficulty of that question has long bothered scientists, who most often simply leave it as a puzzle to answer in the future. Carroll and Chen have made an attempt to answer it now. Previous researchers have approached questions about the big bang with the assumption that entropy in the universe is finite. Carroll and Chen take the opposite approach. "We´re postulating that the entropy of the universe is infinite. It could always increase," Chen said. To successfully explain why the universe looks as it does today, both approaches must accommodate a process called inflation, which is an extension of the big bang theory. Astrophysicists invented inflation theory so that they could explain the universe as it appears today. According to inflation, the universe underwent a period of massive expansion in a fraction of a second after the big bang. But there´s a problem with that scenario: a "skeleton in the closet," Carroll said. To begin inflation, the universe would have encompassed a microscopically tiny patch in an extremely unlikely configuration, not what scientists would expect from a randomly chosen initial condition. Carroll and Chen argue that a generic initial condition is actually likely to resemble cold, empty space-not an obviously favorable starting point for the onset of inflation. In a universe of finite entropy, some scientists have proposed that a random fluctuation could trigger inflation. This, however, would require the molecules of the universe to fluctuate from a high-entropy state into one of low entropy-a statistical longshot. "The conditions necessary for inflation are not that easy to start," Carroll said. "There´s an argument that it´s easier just to have our universe appear from a random fluctuation than to have inflation begin from a random fluctuation." Carroll and Chen´s scenario of infinite entropy is inspired by the finding in 1998 that the universe will expand forever because of a mysterious force called "dark energy." Under these conditions, the natural configuration of the universe is one that is almost empty. "In our current universe, the entropy is growing and the universe is expanding and becoming emptier," Carroll said. But even empty space has faint traces of energy that fluctuate on the subatomic scale. As suggested previously by Jaume Garriga of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University, these flucuations can generate their own big bangs in tiny areas of the universe, widely separated in time and space. Carroll and Chen extend this idea in dramatic fashion, suggesting that inflation could start "in reverse" in the distant past of our universe, so that time could appear to run backwards (from our perspective) to observers far in our past. Regardless of the direction they run in, the new universes created in these big bangs will continue the process of increasing entropy. In this never-ending cycle, the universe never achieves equilibrium. If it did achieve equilibrium, nothing would ever happen. There would be no arrow of time. "There´s no state you can go to that is maximal entropy. You can always increase the entropy more by creating a new universe and allowing it to expand and cool off," Carroll explained. [ link to www.spaceref.com] Quoting: Misguided 0 IT'S ABOUT TIME WE TALKED ABOUT THIS 5 STARS! |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 78238239 United States 02/29/2020 02:37 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders god i wish i could go back to when this thread was made |
Just the Tip
User ID: 73883149 United States 02/29/2020 02:39 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: Scientists closing in on discovering why time flows in only one direction. Art Bell surrenders Wow!! Someone rang the Anal Bell from back in 2004! |
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