Now, and the Flow of Time
Richard A. Muller, a Shaun Maguire b,c
a Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
b Institute for Quantum Information & Matter and Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
c Department of Mathematics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
E-mail: ramuller@lbl.gov, smaguire@caltech.edu
Abstract:
The progression of time can be understood by assuming that the Hubble expansion takes place in 4 dimensions rather than in 3. The flow of time consists of the continuous creation of new moments, new nows, that accompany the creation of new space. This model suggests a modification to the metric tensor of the vacuum that leads to testable consequences. Two cosmological tests are proposed, but they present both experimental and theoretical problems. A more practical and immediate test is based on a predicted lag in the emergence of gravitational radiation when two black holes merge. In such mergers (as recently observed by the LIGO team), a macroscopic volume (millions of cubic kilometers) of space is created in the region in which the gravitational wave is generated; this one-time creation of new space should be accompanied by the creation of detectable level of new time, resulting in a time delay that could be observed as a growing lag in the emission of the wave as the merger takes place.
Keywords: LIGO, gravitational waves, arrow of time
FREE PDF GRATIS: arXiv
