Dear Yousuf Khan:

On Monday, August 20, 2012 10:12:12 PM UTC-7, Yousuf Khan wrote:
....
I'd like to know something more basic, if the
universe is just a bunch of ice crystallizing
from water, then why is it expanding? When most
things crystallize into a solid they contract.

Ice and most rock don't, they get less dense. Else we'd be standing on molten lava now, and the Titanic would have made it to port safely.

However, if you consider "Universal expansion" can be exactly duplicated by simply speeding up clocks everywhere *now*, then the Universe is not expanding... we are all shrinking to the tune of a constant c.

David A. Smith