I'm no physicist, but the universe-expansion thing is interesting...

[AJMD429]

.
The astronomers and physicists are saying things are not making sense in that the universe expansion gets measured and predicted and they get different results.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... r-AA1rBegD

...but these things all seem based on 'assumptions' that themselves I don't see as irrefutable. If we cannot reconcile the 'space' or distance and expansion stuff, could it not be that the rate of TIME's passage is not constant...? That would change 'rates' of everything, and I see no reason to assume that the rate time passes has to be constant throughout the universe either by location, or even more confusingly, over the billions of years we are discussing.

In other words, the car may appear to be changing speed, but not only that could vary if the surface it is driving on is stretching or shrinking, but also it would depend on the rate the watch was ticking.

We need another Einstein or Hawking to chime in with an epiphany...

[GunnyMack]

Time is completely made up by humans, it was the railroad that caused time zones.
What our scientific types come up with for us to say yup that's right could be completely wrong but we believe it.
Sad to say but mankind is doomed unless someone figures out how to leave this planet and they haven't yet...


It's all moot when the sun burns out in 4 billion years.

[mickbr]

Its above my head doc, I wonder how much current theory is based around popularity also, where it cant be proven and settled. Seem to remember growing up regards dinosaurs Trex was the upright predator, then they said his teeth were too weak for actual hunting and nor could he run so he apparently walked about and scavenged like an oversized flightless vulture, then he ran about horizontal full hunting mode for a few years( maybe steven spielberg had some influence with Jurassic park). Now I heard his his bones are too weak for fast running again and he's an ambush predator- poor guy gets an overhaul every ten years.

[KWK]

...but these things all seem based on 'assumptions' that themselves I don't see as irrefutable.

True. "Known" physics involves things that can be tested repeatedly in a lab and fit to mathematical descriptions. The distant (and the early) universe is a lab we can't go out and instrument.

As I recall, the idea the universe is expanding is a result of Einstein's equations, and those equations (which I certainly don't understand) have stood up repeatedly under test here on and near Earth. It sounds as if everything, even the space in our atoms, is thought to be spreading out, possibly to the point some day of disintegration. Strange.

This lack of basic understanding of the physical world is why atheists irk me. It's quite vain to think you know enough to rule out something you can't possibly measure. That applies to theists as well, of course.

[COSteve]

My son is a condensed matter physicist who works for NIST, a National Lab in Boulder, CO. For a physicist he's pretty down to earth and level headed and he's talked to me at length about the universe and the theories of it's origins and expansion. All physicists acknowledge that the theories and observable data don't match in many cases and that the theories explain many but not all of the elements.

But as working theories that's the best that they have at present. That's why journals like Science have articles that are 'pier reviewed' prior to publishing. They are constantly gaining more knowledge and revising their theories and knowledge base. With currently 4 Nobel Prize winning physicists at CU Boulder and NIST, they collaborate on some pretty heady work.