In message , Andrew Gray
writes
In article , Pat Flannery wrote:


Kent Betts wrote:

"Ten minutes ago the chute opened and here is the tone. Then minutes ago
the rockets fired, and here is the tone"

You an hallerb can discuss the public relations aspects.

I think the question is interesting from an almost philosophical
viewpoint; we don't often run into things where the speed of light
enters into the equation of what "now" and "live" are.

It's the first indication we ever had that light had a finite speed,
incidentally - complex calculations had been done to say when Jupiter's
moons should transit or be occulted, - and it was found that they worked
fine at conjunction but were reliably minutes off at opposition, or
similar...

There's a lovely SF story where that delay disappears - Philip Latham's
"The Xi Effect". But haven't you heard? Roemer's observations were
mistaken. There is no speed of light, which is why NASA keeps losing
space probes.
(Sorry - just filling in before the person who _really_ believes this
posts a response :-)
When I first watched "Deep Impact" I was quite impressed when they
mentioned the speed-of-light delay, though I can't help feeling that if
it was only 20 seconds it would be far too late to deflect
Wolf-Biederman.
--
Save the Hubble Space Telescope!
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