wrote in message
...
In article ,
Christina Websell wrote:

wrote in message
...

Well, given that most current cosmology would be rejected from a
fiction competition on the grounds of insufficient plausibility,
I am disinclined to criticise anyone for choosing an arbitrarily
different figure. I am not inclined to believe him, either, of
course.

This is beautiful. I'm going to send it to my German friend, she thinks
she
understands English. Until she saw this ;-)
LOL

Well, I am a professional pedant :-)

Long may you reign. I've been accused of being pedantic myself. Pedants
are important.

The message
from contains these words:
In article ,
Christina Websell wrote:
wrote in message
...

Well, given that most current cosmology would be rejected from a
fiction competition on the grounds of insufficient plausibility,
I am disinclined to criticise anyone for choosing an arbitrarily
different figure. I am not inclined to believe him, either, of
course.

This is beautiful. I'm going to send it to my German friend, she
thinks she
understands English. Until she saw this ;-)
LOL

Well, I am a professional pedant :-)

So was I, once. I'm now an enthusiastic amateur.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from contains these words:

Yes :-) Actually, that's not the thing that annoys me most about the
cosmologists - it's the way that all their evidence depends on a very
complicated analysis of the data, which can only be done by assuming
their hypothesis! It's tortoises all the way down ....

While I haven't had the time to look, ITYF it's turtles...

We have damn-all direct evidence of general relativity at high space-
time stresses, or even that the red shift is due to recession,

Well, it's a good starting-point. Recession creates unemployment,
unemployment results in a lot of ungruntled ex-employees, many of whom
shift to the red...

and
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.

Do these admit the existence of trolls?

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from "Christina Websell" contains
these words:
"Stewart Robert Hinsley" wrote in message
...
In message , Christina Websell
writes
wrote in message
...

Well, given that most current cosmology would be rejected from a
fiction competition on the grounds of insufficient plausibility,
I am disinclined to criticise anyone for choosing an arbitrarily
different figure. I am not inclined to believe him, either, of
course.

This is beautiful. I'm going to send it to my German friend, she thinks
she
understands English. Until she saw this ;-)
LOL

The way I put the sentiment is that any sufficiently advanced physics is
indistinguishable from nonsense. (Tip of the hat to Sir Arthur.)

Oh, stop it!

I'm afraid the whole thing is going far too fast for that, and you're
not allowed to get off, either.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from "Christina Websell" contains
these words:

Long may you reign. I've been accused of being pedantic myself. Pedants
are important.

I beg your pard^h^h^oh! As you were - IMPORTANT...

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

In article ,
Rusty_Hinge wrote:

Yes :-) Actually, that's not the thing that annoys me most about the
cosmologists - it's the way that all their evidence depends on a very
complicated analysis of the data, which can only be done by assuming
their hypothesis! It's tortoises all the way down ....

While I haven't had the time to look, ITYF it's turtles...

Yes, but you know how much the average person knows about zoology!

We have damn-all direct evidence of general relativity at high space-
time stresses, or even that the red shift is due to recession,

Well, it's a good starting-point. Recession creates unemployment,
unemployment results in a lot of ungruntled ex-employees, many of whom
shift to the red...

You have the methods of cosmological proof down to a T.

and
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.

Do these admit the existence of trolls?

Ah. Now, THERE, we have observational evidence. As Einstein didn't
quite say, any theory that doesn't admit the existence of trolls has
to be discounted. And Hawking has said that his theories do admit them.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
says...
The message
from "Christina Websell" contains
these words:

Long may you reign. I've been accused of being pedantic myself. Pedants
are important.

I beg your pard^h^h^oh! As you were - IMPORTANT...


There we are Mike we have proved that at least one group of people are
important :~)
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

--
.................................................. ..............
"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message
T...
In article ,
says...
The message
from "Christina Websell" contains
these words:

Long may you reign. I've been accused of being pedantic myself.
Pedants
are important.

I beg your pard^h^h^oh! As you were - IMPORTANT...


There we are Mike we have proved that at least one group of people are
important :~)
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

I think even more people should be impotent. Some should not be allowed to
vote or breed.

In message ,
writes
We have damn-all direct evidence of general relativity at high space-
time stresses, or even that the red shift is due to recession

I disagree with the position that there is a bright line between
observation and inference, but I presume that you consider the various
standard candle techniques, the correlation between luminosity and
redshift, and the variation of galaxy morphology with redshift to be
indirect evidence. Would the light echo of SN 1987A be the greatest
distance that you accept as directly measured?
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

wrote:
In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In message , Christina Websell
writes
Well, given that most current cosmology would be rejected from a
fiction competition on the grounds of insufficient plausibility,
I am disinclined to criticise anyone for choosing an arbitrarily
different figure. I am not inclined to believe him, either, of
course.

This is beautiful. I'm going to send it to my German friend, she thinks she
understands English. Until she saw this ;-)
LOL

The way I put the sentiment is that any sufficiently advanced physics is
indistinguishable from nonsense. (Tip of the hat to Sir Arthur.)

Yes :-) Actually, that's not the thing that annoys me most about the
cosmologists - it's the way that all their evidence depends on a very
complicated analysis of the data, which can only be done by assuming
their hypothesis! It's tortoises all the way down ....

Turtles...

Not quite. We are on the edge of a golden observational age where the
newest telescopes with high resolution and a wide range of wavelengths
will be able to contain theorists wilder flights of fancy.

Standard candles that can be seen at great distances are pretty well
understood these days. And lots of amateurs keep regular watch.

We have damn-all direct evidence of general relativity at high space-
time stresses,

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.

or even that the red shift is due to recession, and

We don't know this for certain (but it is likely to be true for the vast
majority of normal light emitting stars), but for some extremely compact
objects some of the redshift could come from photons having to climb out
of a very deep gravitational potential well. But on a galactic scale
such objects seem rather unlikely except near the central black hole.

And we do see a picket fence of intervening Lyman alpha absorbtion lines
in the continuum of allegedly distant sources at high redshift.

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.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Feb 20, 9:10*am, "'Mike'" wrote:

I think even more people should be impotent. Some should not be allowed to
vote or breed.-

Quite right! I am prepared to take over the voting and breeding duties
of anybody that you feel is not fit!

In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

We have damn-all direct evidence of general relativity at high space-
time stresses, or even that the red shift is due to recession

I disagree with the position that there is a bright line between
observation and inference,

Eh? I never claimed there was one. I was drawing a (blurred) distinction
between direct and indirect evidence - where the former rests on a basis
of only theories themselves established by direct evidence, culminating
in actual measurements.

but I presume that you consider the various
standard candle techniques, the correlation between luminosity and
redshift, and the variation of galaxy morphology with redshift to be
indirect evidence.

Of course, because they are.

Would the light echo of SN 1987A be the greatest
distance that you accept as directly measured?

I would need to study the paper in detail, to see whether it relies on
any so-far-unproven hypotheses.


This is off-group, so will be my penultimate post.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:

Standard candles that can be seen at great distances are pretty well
understood these days. And lots of amateurs keep regular watch.

Their standardness is all based on indirect evidence. For example,
cosmologists believe that the laws of physics settled down only
shortly after the big bang, so why are we assuming that all physical
constants are the same across all space and time since then?

We have damn-all direct evidence of general relativity at high space-
time stresses,

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.

That is LOW space-time stresses, not enough to distinguish Einstein's
formula from several others.

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.

Why assume that is the only alternative? There are several variants
of the big bang that would enable wildly different ages for the
universe.


This will be my last post on this topic! Anyone who wants me to respond
further should send Email.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"'Mike'" wrote...
What will your garden look like in 2,000,000 (2 Million) years time?

(The Earth is reputed to be 36,000,000,000 years old. That is 36 Thousand
Million)

Just think, how important are you really? ........ ;-)

If the worlds population keeps breeding like it is then I don't see a world
then.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden

--
.................................................. ..............
"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...

"'Mike'" wrote...
What will your garden look like in 2,000,000 (2 Million) years time?

(The Earth is reputed to be 36,000,000,000 years old. That is 36 Thousand
Million)

Just think, how important are you really? ........ ;-)

If the worlds population keeps breeding like it is then I don't see a
world then.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden




I see a World Bob but not with a Human Race in/on it as we know now. Have
you seen the time lapse video of a Motorway 'left to nature'?

My point is, that so many people think that they are 'so important', but in
reality they are like the hand in a bucket of water analogy. Pull your hand
out of a bucket of water and a few ripples will appear, but they will soon
die down. 'THE IMPORTANT' people, or those who feel they are important, are
like that, soon forgotten and not important at all. Historical figures
maybe, but who on this/these newsgroups will EVER hit the History books?

NONE