Dark energy is an unknown form of energy that is proposed to drive the accelerated expansion of the universe. A new study by University of Georgia professor Edward Kipreos suggests that changes in how people think about time dilation—the slowing of time predicted by Albert Einstein—can provide an alternate explanation of dark energy.
In the recent Hollywood film "Interstellar," a team of scientists travel through a wormhole in space to access planets with promising conditions to sustain life on Earth. One of the issues the team must grapple with is time dilation: each hour spent collecting data on a given planet is equal to seven years on Earth.
Einstein's general theory of relativity indicates that time dilation in response to gravity is directional in that an object in high gravity will have slower time than an object in low gravity. In contrast, Einstein's theory of special relativity describes reciprocal time dilation between two moving objects, such that both moving objects' times appear to be slowed down relative to each other.
The new paper makes the case that instead of being reciprocal, time dilation in response to movement is directional, with only the moving object undergoing time dilation.
The study, "Implication of an Absolute Simultaneity Theory for Cosmology and Universe Acceleration," was published Dec. 23 in the journal PLOS ONE.
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