It don’t get much weirder than this. The universe is about to lose its dimension of time says a group of theoretical astrobods at the University of Salamanca in Spain. And they got the evidence to prove it.
The idea comes from the study of braneworlds: the thinking that the universe we see around us is a 4-dimensional cosmos called a braneworld embedded in a multidimensional universe. The “signature” of our universe is the number of space and time-like dimensions it has: in our case we got 3 space-like dimensions and one time-like dimension. It’s what astrobods call a Lorentzian universe. So far so good: lots of astronutters think the same thing.
But our universe may not always have been like this. Some theorists think it may once have had a Euclidean signature meaning that all the dimensions were space-like. Now Marc “Bars” Mars and a few pals in Spain say that the Universe’s signature might be about to flip from Lorentzian to Euclidean. In other words, our dimension of time is about turn space-like. Gulp!
This ain’t entirely bonkers and here’s why. Bars Mars has calculated what it’s like to be an observer in a universe that is about to flip and get this: it would look as if it were expanding and accelerating away from us. Sound familiar?
Yep, it’s exactly what astrobods have been observin over the last few years, a phenomenon they attribute to dark energy. If Bars Mars is right, dark energy ain’t got nothing to do with it and we’re all starin’ down the barrel of a cosmic catastrophe.
Still, maybe four space-like dimensions will be better than three. Who needs time anyway?
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0710.0820: Is the Accelerated Expansion Evidence of a Forthcoming change of Signature?
I’m not scared. Why the hell would I be scared about something I can’t do a damn thing about.
I DONT LIKE MONDAYS TELL ME WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
meh…. dont expect this to happen anytime soon.
we still have another 500 years before earth gets invaded by real aliens…. *check the buddist manuscripts*
2012 is just the solar storm, yes millions will die….. and this implosion explosion thing is constantly happening, its the very essence of matter itself.
If I told you space was bent, and not a sphere, and that space was flat like a mirror, you could keep traveling to the event horizon, but never reach it.
So work this out, its bent and thinner than paper… yet we are 3 dimensional? but yet holographic projections according to string theory.
if you can work your head around this, and understand it like a few of us, you just disproved the existance of a ‘god’.
…..if you think that this doesnt make sense, I suggest you study string theory, do the math.
it proves god does not exist.
If time becoming space-like is equivalent to an expansion of our perceived universe, when time will complete the transition to space then the universe will become infinitely (or extremely) large: distances between particles will be infinite (or very large) so our bodies won’t exist anymore. We’re going to be stretched to death, but I think we’ll die much before that time (!) because the sun will lose its gravitational grip on Earth and our last days will be very dark and very cold.
But this is nothing new: the scenario of a cold death of the universe is quite old.
To visualize what this transition will be, use Kenny Rogers lyrics from “Just Dropped In”.
I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in. I watched myself crawlin out as I was crawling in. I got up so tight I couldn’t unwind. I saw so much I broke my mind. I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
[…] http://arxivblog.com/?p=71 […]
We can visualize the spatialization of time by increasing dispersion of light inside of fog with distance. By AWT vacuum is inhomogeneous environment by definition, so that the light travels along the more curved path, perspendicular to spreading direction, the higher distance is. At the sufficient distance, the light travels completelly in perpendicular direction, because it spreads along event horizon of our universe. The perpendicular direction is the space-direction of the space-time gradient.