Many books describe the early eons of the universe in terms of things occurring for so many millions of years. Since our measurement of time (one year) comes from the earth's orbit of the sun, neither of which body existed for most of the early cosmic expansion, how is it possible to speak of processes as occurring over a quantity of years? Even using more sophisitcated time keeping, such as rates of particle decay or atomic resonance, how can those be measuring rods for time when those particles did not exist at the time being measured. In short, how can we quantify the passage of time early in the universe's history when the things we use as time's yardsticks didn't exist?
2006-09-26
17:48:28
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7 answers
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asked by
Jimmy J
1