Final answer:
To travel 12 centimeters on a uniformly stretching ruler, the ant would take 1.2 minutes considering its speed to be proportional to its distance from a fixed point, similar to the cosmic expansion explained by Hubble's law.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question is about determining the time it takes for an ant to travel a certain distance on a stretching ruler, which is a scenario illustrating concepts similar to Hubble's law and spacetime curvature in physics. Assuming a uniform rate of stretching and that the speeds of ants are proportional to their distances from a reference point, we can deduce how long it will take an ant to travel 12 centimeters. An ant that was originally 10 centimeters from the reference ant had to move at a speed of 10 centimeters per minute due to the stretching of the ruler. Therefore, to travel 12 centimeters, it would take 1.2 minutes because the ruler's elongation caused the ant to cover more distance over time.
The given data reveals that as the ruler stretches uniformly, ants at different distances move away from the reference ant at different speeds that are in proportion to the initial distances between them. Since the ant in question doubles its distance within a minute and has to cover 12 centimeters, we divide the total distance by the speed at which the ant is moving away, which is 10 centimeters per minute, to get the travel time.
Through this problem, we learn about the effects of uniform stretching on the movement of objects within a system, representing an understandable model for principles like the expansion of the universe and gravitational lensing without invoking complicated mathematical formulas.