Dark Energy is really just time slowing down?
Historical thread discussing whether apparent cosmic acceleration could be an illusion caused by time slowing down.
For all of you who have read my posts for a while, you know that I have a hard time believing in the Big Bang. I also have always felt that the expansion of the universe was not really happening as metric expansion, with some mystical force expanding space. Although I didn't come up with this solution, it seems to be in sync with what I have been saying for a while: that the expansion of the universe is merely an illusion of sorts.
What if the universe itself isn't actually expanding at an ever increasing speed, but time is actually slowing down, where it will eventually cease to exist entirely? The changes in everyday life would be minuscule, but much more visible in the vastness of the cosmic arena. The idea is that if time gradually slows, but we keep using equations that assume a standard flow of time, then an effective accelerated expansion appears.
Archived source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140329013926/http://www.spacetimeandtheuniverse.com/against-mainstream/6104-dark-energy-really-just-time-slowing-down.html
Replies
Hamiltonian
But Senovilla's hypothesis doesn't dispose of either the Big Bang or the expanding space metric. So you find the idea of expanding space unbelievable, but you don't have a problem with the idea of time turning into space. Is that right?
Monty 76
Surely, if time is slowing down, then velocity will appear to be increasing. When time stops, everything will appear to be travelling at the speed of light, or will it be infinite?
What is time? Our concept of it can only be from the observation of some action: the rotation of the earth, the earth's orbit around the sun, or our life span. Time is relative. One minute of pain is a lot longer than one minute of pleasure. The expansion theory is based on the observation of red-shift, and we don't know what effect viewing over vast distances has on the transmission of colour. Where is the evidence that makes this more plausible than any other guess?