I recall a number of discussions of universal time of one of these forums. Well here is a new paper with seemingly a new perspective on that question. What I gleamed from a cursory reading is the quantum mechanics requires a universal time whereas general relativity and the Godel universe does not. Here is the link to the Cornell archives and a copy of the abstract.

On the other hand, maybe all interested parties have departed.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0503200

Dark Energy Stars
Authors: G. Chapline
Comments: 4 pages, 2 figures
Journal-ref: Proceedings of the Texas Conference on Relativistic Astrophysics, Stanford, CA, December, 2004

Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum mechanics. Following ideas originated by Robert Laughlin, Pawel Mazur, Emil Mottola, David Santiago, and the speaker it is now possible to describe in some detail what happens physically when one approaches and crosses a region of space-time where classical general relativity predicts there should be an infinite red shift surface. This quantum critical physics provides a new perspective on a variety of enigmatic astrophysical phenomena, including supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, positron emission, and dark matter.
Full-text: PDF only

• Inconsistent ? - bazukaz - March 12, 2005 - 18:04 UTC
• universal time ? - wraith - September 9, 2005 - 19:59 UTC