Rusty_Hinge wrote:
The message
from Martin Brown contains these words:

/snip/

Actually we do have some pretty good examples in the millisecond pulsars
for instance. Shortly after the first discovery of a binary ms pulsar an
error was found in the FORTRAN converter of the early VSOP computer
algebra generated planetary ephemeris thanks to a systematic error in
the GR predicted delay observed when the signals passed near to Jupiter.
The spin down rate matches the GR predictions very nicely.

Ah, early 486 chip then?

No a long way before that. I am not sure if the 286 had been invented
back then. I heard about it first hand in 1984. ISTR it had something to
do with continuation cards in the FORTRAN conversion output of a
symbolic algebra system. It was big iron mainframe stuff.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/p...993/press.html

This quirk isn't mentioned in their Nobel prize citation, but it was
quite interesting at the time. Their observations were accurate enough
to find fault in a solar system ephemeris model that was unchallenged in
its precision and widely assumed to be good enough for all practical
purposes.

there are alternative hypotheses that are mathematically consistent
and compatible with known physics. Yes, they're probably wrong, but
that doesn't prove the current hypotheses are right.

Indeed. But the evidence for a Big Bang cosmology is pretty compelling.
There are very few die hard Steady Staters remaining these days.

Depending on what you mean by that. There are plenty who believe that
the universe is continuously expansing and then falling in on itself in
an unending cycle of big crunches ans big bangs.

Some of these ideas can be ruled out observationally. Unless you invoke
a perverse deity to tweak things around on an ad hoc basis. One nasty
world model invokes demons whose job it is to decide on surprising
answers to any new questions that experimentalists decide to ask.

It is just so much more appealing to have the laws of physics the same
for all observers in an inertial frame of reference.

Multiverse conjectures allow for spanning all possible universes but
with only the interesting ones really showing up. A bit like the way
wave propagation of light simplifies to geometrical optics when viewed
at the larger scale.

There are also some who posit continuous creation/generation of matter
at the centre of the universe, and yet others who maintain that by means
of a contorted space/time continuum what goes out of the fringes appears
to be coming in through the centre...

Anyway, how come the universe doesn't rank a capital letter, and Belgium does?

I would refer you to HHGG

Regards,
Martin Brown