this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
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My understanding of cosmic expansion is that large masses sort of pin space down to fixed spacial dimensions. Outside of galaxies and such, space gets bigger over time. In the sense that if you tried to cross a cosmic void at speed lower than the expansion rate, you would never cross the space. There are cases where objects are receeding faster than the speed of light, which is impossible unless space is getting bigger. The exact rate of expansion may have been exaggerated by flaws in the distance ladder we use to measure space, which this paper is trying to improve.
This still begs the question what the fuck is space if it can expand? If it's not just empty space and the distance between two objects is increasing therefore the space itself is increasing then space itself has a physical property, like water filling a bath, and the water is growing to fill the bath. The gravitational objects are "pinning" the water the same way that putting a ball inside water displaces the water around it or something. But, water is water, space is space but we don't really understand its physical property the same way?
I do not like thinking about this. It hurts my head.