Comments on: “Mystery turtles all the way down.” https://habitablezone.com/2017/09/19/mystery-turtles-all-the-way-down/ Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:18:10 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: RobVG https://habitablezone.com/2017/09/19/mystery-turtles-all-the-way-down/#comment-40233 RobVG Tue, 26 Sep 2017 04:05:31 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=66861#comment-40233 Energy entwined in space time. https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_cosmo_infl.html Energy entwined in space time.

https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_cosmo_infl.html

]]> By: hank https://habitablezone.com/2017/09/19/mystery-turtles-all-the-way-down/#comment-40200 hank Tue, 19 Sep 2017 23:48:40 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=66861#comment-40200 "Thus the explorations of space end on a note of uncertainty. And necessarily so. We are, by definition, at the very center of the observable region. We know our immediate neighborhood rather intimately. With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary — the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. "The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass onto the dreamy realms of speculation." “Thus the explorations of space end on a note of uncertainty. And necessarily so. We are, by definition, at the very center of the observable region. We know our immediate neighborhood rather intimately. With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary — the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial.

“The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass onto the dreamy realms of speculation.”

]]> By: RL https://habitablezone.com/2017/09/19/mystery-turtles-all-the-way-down/#comment-40199 RL Tue, 19 Sep 2017 23:41:47 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=66861#comment-40199 But the mirrors keep getting bigger and better.... But the mirrors keep getting bigger and better….

]]> By: hank https://habitablezone.com/2017/09/19/mystery-turtles-all-the-way-down/#comment-40198 hank Tue, 19 Sep 2017 23:33:35 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=66861#comment-40198 Mostly, because the data is so scarce, and often contradictory. Unlike other fields of astronomy where the problem is a fire hose stream of information that must be disentangled and sorted out, the problem in cosmology is that we are working at the very limits of our vision, and as Hubble put it, often dealing with measurements scarcely larger than their uncertainties. And every time we build a bigger telescope, we wind up with more new questions than we do with answers to the old ones. Be gentle with the cosmologists, they may come off as flakes, but they are working right on the frontier. And they wouldn't have it any other way. Mostly, because the data is so scarce, and often contradictory. Unlike other fields of astronomy where the problem is a fire hose stream of information that must be disentangled and sorted out, the problem in cosmology is that we are working at the very limits of our vision, and as Hubble put it, often dealing with measurements scarcely larger than their uncertainties. And every time we build a bigger telescope, we wind up with more new questions than we do with answers to the old ones.

Be gentle with the cosmologists, they may come off as flakes, but they are working right on the frontier. And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

]]>