Quote:
Originally Posted by mtaylor
Sorry, had another thought. What if its not space that getting bigger, but time getting slower. You never hear about time. Suppose that the farther you get away from here, the slower time is. That would explain the appearance that the universe was expanding and red shifting -- wouldn't it?
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That's a great point. Time is the 4th dimension of spacetime of course, and the metaphors so far have not included time.
I'm fairly sure time 'slowing down' would not have the effect you describe, I'm not even sure it can (slow down that is, aside from relativistic effects which I think are quite a different beast).
I usually try to imagine 4d spacetime as a 3d loaf (one dimension subtracted again) - time being 'slices' of the loaf. Relativity means you can slice the loaf at different angles, so that different angled slices will include different events. The slices are always ordered from back to front (past to future - the arrow of time) due to increasing entropy (or disorder) in the universe. Then my brain melts.
Other than that, someone else might be able to help. Or you could post your question at Q&A, some of the folks over there are pretty damn smart. It's a great question, you're bound to get some great replies.
http://www.bautforum.com/questions-answers/