Georgina,
The physical basis of the concept of spacetime is that since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum and because physical mass consists of atomic structure, where the electrons are spinning/vibrating at high rates, when you accelerate the frame of that mass to extreme speeds, the constituent atomic activity is slowed proportionally, in order that the combined external speed and internal activity doesn't exceed the speed of light. Now this has two effects; For one thing, it physically contracts the frame, since the slower atomic activity results in a smaller and somewhat flatter atom and thus everything constituted from it. Also any measure of the speed of light will be similarly slowed, yet since the frame is proportionally smaller, it will remain constant to that frame. There are other aspects of this, such as that between different frames, but this is the essential one to keep in mind.
Now for very deep psychological reasons, originating in the human desire for order, it is assumed that mathematical principles exist as some platonic realm of perfect structure and so what we experience; space, time, mass, energy, etc. are really just imperfect expressions of this order and so it is assumed this relationship between measures of distance and duration is a reflection of that elemental order, while the actual properties being measured are only effects of that deep structure.
That is why it is referred to as the "fabric of spacetime," in which the dimension of time is treated as though it were similar to space, with all events existing somewhere in that grand "blocktime" and our personal sense of "now" is entirely subjective. Along with ideas of being able to warp it around and time travel, as though one would move about in space. I go into the illogic of time as a physical dimension elsewhere, so won't go into that here.
The issue of how it was essentially inverted to explain cosmic redshift also can be traced back to this assumption of mathematical order as being elemental, rather than emergent. While Georges Lemaitre, who was not coincidently a Catholic priest, was the first to propose the expanding universe theory, in order to trace its origin to a Primary Cause, he planted the idea in fertile ground and so the idea quickly gained acceptance, especially to explain Edwin Hubble's discovery of redshift.
The irony here is that Einstein had come to the conclusion, based on his treatment of gravity as equivalent to acceleration, that gravity would cause the universe to collapse to a point and so proposed the cosmological constant as a fudge to keep it from doing so and then dismissed it as his greatest error, when redshift was discovered and the Big Bang theory was proposed to solve it, since the redshift could just as easily been considered evidence of a cosmological constant, as gravity is galactic contraction and this is intergalactic expansion. Thus what is falling into galaxies, is balanced by what expands between them.
That this wasn't considered goes to show the emotional appeal of the singular cause.
Now originally it was simply assumed all these galaxies were simply flying away from each other and the idea of spatial references wasn't given much thought, but on further examination they came to the realization that all these galaxies appear to be receding directly away from us and at rates increasing proportional to distance. This creates the effect of us appearing as being at the exact center of the universe and that seemed far too coincidental for these otherwise fairly objective scientists. So then the proposition was since spacetime was not simply an effect of acceleration on atomic structure, but a foundational property of the universe, it could be used to explain how every point is its own primal center of the universe and so every point is rushing away from every other point.
But as I keep pointing out, the premise of spacetime is that both distance and duration have to remain constant. Now the actual physical process can really only shrink space and time, because the speed of light is a genuine limit, but if we were to assume the opposite to be true and space could actually expand, then presumably these platonic mathematical principles need to apply more than ever and so the speed of light and thus the clock rate should increase proportional to this expanded space. The problem is that would negate solving the issue, because then those distant galaxies wouldn't appear to recede, since the speed of light would increase, in order to remain constant. Therefore a galaxy x lightyears away, would always be x lightyears away, as the speed of light remains constant to this expanded space
Of course, the real need here is to save Big Bang theory, so logical constancy is a small price to pay.
Eckard,
I am very aware of not just the political implications of going against the crowd, but the emotional ones as well. Given his tenacity, Tom is exceedingly polite and considerate. Usually the polite ones quickly drop the discussion and disappear when they realize I may have a point, while these more intent on telling me that I must be wrong usually get irate and rude when I keep answering their rebuttals. So while Tom gets a little testy on occasion, he is still a true gentleman.
The problem for Tom and Joy is that physics, as a movement, has accepted and built on the whole "spooky action at a distance" premise and moved on, so they are shaking the tree. With blocktime, multiwords, multiverses, time travel, inflation, dark energy, etcetcetc. as givens, logical explanations for quantum effects might pop a bubble or two and who knows where that might lead.
Regards,
John M