(=>) "Uni-verse" means literally "One-way" : - Old Greek insight ;-)
. . . A perfect name for irreversible Time (Entropy increases in any dynamic process)

(*) 'Hysteretic clustering in granular gas' by Ko van der Weele et.al:
"The tendency to form clusters can be traced back to the fact that
the collisions between the granules are inelastic. -- Some energy is
dissipated in every collision, which means that a relatively dense region
(where particles collide more often than elsewhere) dissipates more energy
and thus becomes even denser, yielding a cluster of slow particles."
-------------------- Re: Friction and Anti-entropy --------------------
Oscillon pictures Non-linear dissipative system physics.

(#) A Scientifically and Psychologically hard-to-accept Global Fact.

"Worlds within worlds" (by David Pratt) -- Quote:
"One of the fundamental dogmas of standard, etherless relativity theory is
that the speed of light is an absolute constant for all observers.
This has been disproven by a series of experiments since the early 20th century [&].
In 1913 Georges Sagnac, an ardent opponent of relativity theory, showed that
if light is sent in opposite directions round a rotating platform, the velocity of
light decreases for the beam travelling in the direction of rotation and increases
for the beam travelling in the opposite direction, the increase or decrease being
equal to the rotational velocity of the apparatus. The relativists were so shocked
by this result that they dismissed and ridiculed it for nearly three decades.
-- Today the ‘Sagnac effect’ is well established and has been confirmed by numerous
experiments with extreme precision. In fact, it forms the basis for the modern
ring-laser gyroscope, which is widely used for navigation by ships, submarines,
aircraft, and satellites. In 1925 Michelson, Gale, and Pearson carried out a
larger-scale experiment that detected a variation in the speed of light caused the
earth’s own rotation. This result, too, has since been verified with high resolution.
Attempts by orthodox relativists to explain away these findings by invoking
‘time dilation’ and the ‘dragging of spacetime’ are contrived and unconvincing,
and nowadays they tend to avoid any mention of them." -- David Pratt
[&] "Space, time, and relativity" Einstein’s fallacies.

On Redshift and the Big Bang (by Ira Pilgrim):
..."We know that the Doppler shift is real. If you look at two sides of the sun
with a spectroscope, one side will be red shifted and the other side blue shifted.
On that basis one can deduce that the sun is spinning and how fast it is spinning.

Is the Doppler effect the only possible explanation for the red shift?
- - Another explanation, called the tired light theory, postulates that light
travelling over vast distances loses energy, and red shifts as a consequence
of that energy loss. [..] This shows there might just be another (simpler)
explanation to the assumed Doppler red-shift of galaxy spectra.
At present there is no way to test this theory, nor the Doppler-shift theory.
In other words, the idea that the universe is expanding cannot now be verified.
The time-honored scientific principle of verification and counter proof seems
to be forgotten. Nowadays if someone develops a theory, and tests it a few
times to be compatible with the theory, people assume the theory is correct,
but that ain't necessarily so. There are more possibilities than we can even
imagine. And closed minds don't imagine at all.
The current fad is that the universe was once an immense mass that exploded in
a big bang. The other theory is the steady state theory, stating the universe has
always been more-or-less the way that it is today.
- It seems to me that the idea that the universe must have a beginning has
more to do with religious traditions of cosmologists than with science. Many
astronomers defend their theory in much the same way. Religious fundamentalists
are no more dogmatic about the origin of the universe than some cosmologists."

Ether structure - Hydrodynamic model, with 'etherons'

Photons, and Ether as gas of gyrons - Frank Meno, Ph.D., U-Pittsburg, USA

Quasars & Big-Bang - Paul Marmet's critique on the Big-Bang hypothesis
. . . (IEEE Tr. on Plasma Science 1992, p.958-964)

[2] "Dissipation and Oscillation"
....======================
... Dissipation, typically exponential decay, has a first order differential
equation (DE) as model, involving a variable and only its first derivative.
... Oscillation has a second order DE, involving a variable and its first and
second derivative. If the first order term of an oscillation is zero, then the
oscillation is not damped by friction or otherwise, so of constant amplitude.
... My assumption (axiom;-) is that in practice, in the physics of our Universe,
there is friction everywhere. Hence the first order term of any oscillation
does NOT vanish, but it may be extremely small, say of order 1/(h.c^2) [2].
Hubble constant measured
- - - Hubble Space Telescope Key Project (dec-2000): H_o = 72 +/- 8.

Redshift FAQ - Setterfield :
Q: - "What does 'quantized' mean?"
A: - "When we refer to a series of measurements being quantized, we
mean the fact that they are showing up in jumps and not as a smooth,
continuous function. It would be as if an accelerating car were seen as going
5 mph, then 10 mph, then 15 mph, and so on, but not at any speeds in between.
This sort of series of jumps in the redshift measurements has been recorded.
It would be expected that they should be like a car when it is accelerating:
showing a smooth series of measurements. But this is evidently not what the data
is showing. It is for this reason that the assumption of an expanding universe
based on redshift measurements may be false. Could the universe expand in jumps? "

NB: Notice that in history, after Newton defined planetary motion as effect of gravity
with an inverse quadratic law of attraction, much effort was spent on finding if it
was exactly quadratic or wether there was a tiny departure from quadratic (IIRC
no departure was found). However, since closure is a holy principle, especially
for mathematicians but also for most physicists, no effort was put into finding if
the first order (decay) term of any orbit was zero or not: only if zero the orbit is
a closed curve, preserving energy perfectly!
So ether friction cannot be compensated by a pure gravity (lossless) adjustment
to the orbit of a planet. Because the first order term in a decay process cannot be
compensated by any adjustment of a second-order term. But Earth's orbit, losing
height by ether friction, can be balanced by the Sun's radiation pressure outwards.
The proposed balancing of outwards directed radiation pressure and inwards directed
'height-loss' (due to ether 'friction') of the Earth orbit, should hold for ALL planets.
And if not, then another explanation is needed for the Solar system NOT expanding
due to the Sun's radiation pressure (which is definitely not negligeable)!

[4] We study the properties of a simple semi-classical model of a photon confined
in periodic boundary conditions of one wavelength. The topology of this object,
together with the photon electric field, give rise to a charge of the order of
10^(-19) Coulomb and a half-integral spin, independent of its size. The ratio of
the electro-magnetic energy inside and outside the object leads to an anomalous
spin g factor which is close to that of the electron. Although a finite size of
order 10^(-12) meter arises in a natural way, the apparent size of the object will
be much smaller in energetic scattering events. ( fig-1.gif )

Links en Rechts, van alles wat.

Associative Digital Network Theory : New Book - (Wikipedia.org)

H. Alfvén (Plasma Physics, Nobel prize 1970), on the resistance to his ideas,
pointed to the increasing specialization of science during this century (1986):
- "We should remember that there was once a discipline called natural philosophy."
. . . "Unfortunately, this discipline seems not to exist today. It was renamed science,
but science today is in danger of losing much of the natural philosophy aspect."
- Among the causes of this transition, Alfvén believed, are territorial dominance,
greed, and fear of the unknown. -- "Scientists tend to resist interdisciplinary
inquiries into their own territory. In many instances such parochialism is founded
on the fear that intrusion from other disciplines would compete unfairly for
limited financial resources and thus diminish their own opportunity for research."
-- A story typical of the difficulties Alfvén faced in his scientific career :
Interplanetary space was commonly considered as a good vacuum, disturbed only
by occasional comets. This was widely accepted because space looked that way,
having been viewed only through telescopes at optical wavelengths. In contrast,
the electrical currents proposed by Alfvén generated a telltale signature only in
the radio portions of the electromagnetic spectrum so they were not yet observed.
Thus Alfvén's proposal that there were electrical currents in space was received
with great skepticism. In 1939 Alfvén advanced a remarkable theory of magnetic
storms and auroras that has widely influenced contemporary theories of plasma
dynamics in the earth's magnetosphere. He used the notion of electric charges
spiraling in magnetic fields to calculate the motions of electrons and ions.

- Alfvén: "The peer review system is satisfactory during quiescent times, but
--- not during a revolution in a discipline such as astrophysics, when the
--- establishment seeks to preserve the status quo." (Alfvén vs. Chapman)

How far is a Star, really? We really don't know, untill Parallax tells us. But:
"In the whole of sidereal astronomy there is, perhaps, nothing more difficult to
determine than the parallax of a star!"
. . . (so assume redshift proportional to speed, not to distance;-(
"Astronomers say all sorts of silly stuff: they know that no one can double check them.
That's what Empirical Science is: a process of making exacting computations based on
absolutely no fact whatsoever. [...] One actual math computation (a volume ratio)
gives the whole fantasy the color of measurable reality and thus deludes Empirical
Science into believing it is dealing with measurable fact.... So, with all of these
estimates based on distance, what does distance do to the estimates?" (Peter Bros)

My 9 papers at sciencedirect.com (Register free, login & search 'benschop')
and at de.arXiv.org - (old versions, before dec-2001)