Universe Might be Bigger and Older than Expected

[stuart]

Originally Posted by Blue Fire

Sigh . . . where will it all end? I follow these types of things with great interest, but it can get frustrating for us non-experts to decipher just where astronomers are going sometimes, . . . not to mention where they are coming from.

Well, this is actually one reason why I got into astronomy ... it's always changing!

[Dragon Star]

Originally Posted by stuart

Well, this is actually one reason why I got into astronomy ... it's always changing!

Ditto, and always uncertain. That's why I kinda like theoretical physics more then what we think we already know.

[Blue Fire]

Originally Posted by stuart

Well, this is actually one reason why I got into astronomy ... it's always changing!

Yes, I agree with the "always changing" part when it involves some progress as in discovering new things like planets, black holes, etc., but I still have to admit to a certain frustration when things seem to be locked into some sort of seesaw back and forth. Maybe it's my impatience in having to sift through all the "chaffe" sometimes repeatedly to get to the truth. Wishful thinking perhaps? I do realize that science has to go through the bumps in the road often to get anywhere. It's just trying sometimes for non-experts like me to sort it all out.

But hey, Mamma never promised life would be easy, eh?

[stuart]

Originally Posted by Blue Fire

I still have to admit to a certain frustration when things seem to be locked into some sort of seesaw back and forth.

Ah, but that's how you get your paper citations and number of papers up! I was doing a search once and I found this team that every two years for the last 8 years has published a paper with the exact same name, just based upon new extra-solar planets that have been discovered. And I was talking with a guy here at CU who got two Nature papers out just by arguing with Steve Squyers (the MER guy).

[Nokton]

Originally Posted by Blue Fire

Sigh . . . where will it all end? I follow these types of things with great interest, but it can get frustrating for us non-experts to decipher just where astronomers are going sometimes, . . . not to mention where they are coming from.

.
Hi Blue, have expressed this line of reasoning before. Any determination of 'age' concerning processes far removed from our Earth environment,
must include the position and situation of the observer.
Blue, consider this, take two scenarios, one observer in a low gravity
low speed environment, the other in a high speed, high gravity environment, would their concepts regarding the passage of time be equal? Albert thought not, that was a reflection of his 'time frames' theory. Blue, how we measure time is appropriate only to how we understand our 'local' time.
Peter ( Nokton).