4 ms·
It is far too many bits to be used for time representation. 512 bits is all that needed to store every planck time (10^-44 seconds) since the big bang until th
by J_Darnley 11y ago
It is far too many bits to be used for time representation. 512 bits is all that needed to store every planck time (10^-44 seconds) since the big bang until the heat death of the universe (10^100 years).
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoSure, that's fine if all you want is to measure the time from the big bang until the last matter in the universe has evaporated into photon soup. But what if you want the time until those photons are evenly distributed? An article I read a while back estimated that duration as 10^10^78 years, which is absolutely mindboggling and remains the largest number I have ever seen with a real-world physical application. (It may never happen, though; according to Wikipedia, random quantum fluctuations may be sufficient to produce another Big Bang in a mere 10^10^56 years.)
- firethief 11y agoThat makes sense for durations, but a time_t is actually a timestamp. A proper time can have the same units as a duration, but is only useful in conjunction with information about the trajectory of the clock measuring the time. If space is continuous, the amount of information to specify the trajectory is limited only by the capabilities of the measurement apparatus. Of course, for all we know at this point spacetime is quantized; so we should probably hold off on standardizing the time format to end all time formats.