Time lapse

[Storms]

So the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment]Hafele-Keating experiment[/url] proved that time can sort of be manipulated. If you decrease your velocity relative to the world, you will experience more time than the world. And if you increase your velocity relative to the world, your time slows down, and the world gets older quicker.

That was measurable if you flew around the world in a commercial airliner in 1971.

So extrapolating the idea to how we relate to the black hole in the center of our galaxy, as our solar system gets pulled closer to the center, it's velocity will increase. And as our velocity increases, our time slows down. So the universe will seem to speed up.

Which meshes nicely with the idea that since the big bang, the universe has been expanding, and the latest observations have it that the rate at which it is expanding is still increasing. It might actually be slowing down, but it just looks the other way because of the time distortion from our velocity increasing.

Maybe.

I like to imagine if one could decrease their velocity enough in relation to the earth, it seems that one could almost put the world into a freeze frame like state.

Kinda of like the less often you smoke weed, the stronger it seems when you do.

[KIY]

That's a possibility. Another explanation for the increasing velocity of distant objects is one which I read a year or two ago is that the brane upon which our universe is spread may be increasing its vibration, which is causing time to come to an end. (I don't understand how-- the article didn't go into much depth.) There is also the possibility that dark matter and dark energy is involved. (I understand that even less well.)

[Storms]

I've got a hunch the end of time is going to take forever.

But if time came to an end, would we even notice? If we don't have a reference for it, you know.

Personally, I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll make great pets for our robot overlords after the singularity, but last I checked that's not predicted for sometime between 2020 and 2045.

[KIY]

Well, 2020 really isn't that far away. The answer is that we probably wouldn't notice. (Specifically the article said that, in order for anything to occur, it would have to happen faster than the speed of light-- effectively the same thing as everything coming to a halt.) It is also tied to quantum mechanics, specifically string theory.

I'm more than a little concerned that our civilization will collapse before the Singularity. Some of the timing of the Singularity will depend upon what is going on with Global Climate Change, Peak Oil, when and how bad the next economic collapse is (probably soon and very bad), and some other factors.

Anyway, I've got other stuff which needs working on right now.