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I read in the popular press that European physicists proposed time slowing down, possibly in the process of becoming a spacial dimension, as an alternative explanation to accelerating expansion and dark energy.

The mechanism seemed plausible to an educated layperson, but I lack the relevant expertise to fully evaluate their claims.

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    $\begingroup$ I'm not a cosmologist, but I have taken a graduate-level cosmology course, and my professor said that his favorite interpretation of Hubble's law is that time is slowing down. I'm not familiar enough with the full implications of this interpretation though to do more than reference my professor as to the validity of this interpretation. $\endgroup$
    – NeutronStar
    Feb 15, 2018 at 20:52
  • $\begingroup$ @Joshua What is your reference to your professor? Who is he? What has he published on this topic? It is not helpful to quote your professor without identifying him. $\endgroup$
    – sammy gerbil
    Feb 15, 2018 at 22:02
  • $\begingroup$ I'd be wary of interpretations like "time is becoming a spatial dimension", as there is very often little robust analysis of the meaning of such an assertion - it smacks of those inspired by thinking about the four dimensions on paper, where time is just another dimension like the rest, and have forgotten about the very different physical reality of space and time to which the dimensions on paper relate. But there are alternative explanations besides cosmological expansion - there is no settled or preferred explanation, except by reference to one's own matter of taste. $\endgroup$
    – Steve
    Feb 15, 2018 at 22:11
  • $\begingroup$ @sammygerbil, I am a graduate student in this professor's department. I won't give you the professor's name because doing so would reveal who I am IRL; that's why I didn't give their identity in the first place. This professor is in the American Astronomical Society leadership though, works in quasars and their applications to cosmology/large scale structure, has over 120 papers with more than 120 citations, and has published over 300 papers in total. $\endgroup$
    – NeutronStar
    Feb 15, 2018 at 22:19
  • $\begingroup$ @Joshua You could have cited the professor's works without stating your affiliation. The circumstantial information you have provided is not as useful as the information you have left out. $\endgroup$
    – sammy gerbil
    Feb 15, 2018 at 22:33

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