Speed of Time

Earth is supposedly moving through space at 1.3 million miles per hour in relation to the cosmic microwave background radiation.

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We are moving toward the Great attractor at increasing speeds. Earth is 4 billion years old and we have probably been speeding up that entire time.

If our speed and time frame are relative like they say, wouldn't this mean that all the methods we use to date things on Earth and even the age of earth itself are not accurate unless each takes in account the Earths constant increasing velocity through space?

A year of "half-life" for an Uranium-238 atom traveling on Earth at a slower speed 4+ billion years ago through space would age faster in relation to the cosmic background radiation than that same Uranium-238 atom on Earth today traveling at much greater speed.

So my question is has anyone ever taken all the above into account while dating Earth and objects on Earth based on radioactive dating? Also do we really know how the Earths speed through the universe has changed since its creation?

Could Earth be much older or younger if at sometime in its history our local group of galaxies slowed or sped up by a great amount? When did our local group get grabed by the great attractor? Did we speed up then?

I have looked around have not found answers to these questions. Links and info would be greatly appreciated.

[edit on 8-8-2009 by Xeven]

reply to post by Xeven


I've always thought that since our Galaxy is rotating around a Galactic core and that that rotation is ever increasing in velocity that time is in fact speeding up in accordance with that increased speed...but that everything speeds up uniformly, including half-life decay.

That way it isn't perceivable in any conventional way of detection but is doing so nonetheless. Which is why I and everyone I have ever spoken to always claims that as you age time speeds up.

But I don't know anything other than those basic ideas. Sorry I can't help you. Good question.

I would think... as the cosmos from high energy , and the excitment of the big bang , to greater order of location and dencer gravity ... you would seem to slow down.
the except to this would be orbitital.

to me all this makes perfect sense... it seems we are speeding up... when in fact , all the standards are slowing down

rather that the tree growing taller faster... your measureing stick and the world with it is getting smaller , faster .

The way I understand it is anything within the time “bubble” lets say Earth time is constant for us. While it may have sped up or slowed down with respect to some galactic clock our sense of time wouldn't change. That means even if we measure the Earth to be 4 billion years old but by the galactic clock it looked like 3 billion the Earth would still be 4 billion years old. Since the time that actually effects the Earth from its perspective was 4 billion.

Lets say I go to some planet close to the speed of light and it takes me 4 years to get there. I would have aged 4 years but for everyone else much more time would have passed. So here's the question how old would I be? In every practical sense I would still be only 4 years older.

Hence why time is considered to be a local phenomena.

I swear that made sense in my head and hope it makes sense in yours too

Originally posted by Louther
The way I understand it is anything within the time “bubble” lets say Earth time is constant for us. While it may have sped up or slowed down with respect to some galactic clock our sense of time wouldn't change. That means even if we measure the Earth to be 4 billion years old but by the galactic clock it looked like 3 billion the Earth would still be 4 billion years old. Since the time that actually effects the Earth from its perspective was 4 billion.

Lets say I go to some planet close to the speed of light and it takes me 4 years to get there. I would have aged 4 years but for everyone else much more time would have passed. So here's the question how old would I be? In every practical sense I would still be only 4 years older.

Hence why time is considered to be a local phenomena.

I swear that made sense in my head and hope it makes sense in yours too

Exactly. If Earth was moving slower 4 billion years ago then time would have moved faster back then than it does now since we are speeding up. That means atoms would have aged faster but slowed down as the Earth sped up.

Unless they are factoring in the time dilation of our speed at different points in history then what ever time scales they are using to measure earths history is not correct.