On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 19:17:51 +0100, "George Dishman"
wrote:


"vonroach" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:59:07 +0100, "George Dishman"
wrote:


"vonroach" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 15:57:41 +0100, "George Dishman"
wrote:

Complete utter nonsense.

Actually, I love that reply, the values weren't
measured, they were just assumed because nothing
else fits the observations.

George

A common practice in science. Newton's entire workable theory of
gravity for example.

So you think Newton never _measured_ the acceleration
of gravity to be 32 ft/s^2, he only _assumed_ it had
that value "a posteriori" in order to "justify" the
measurements that a dropped item increased its speed
by 32 ft/s in each second?

George

He measured what he attributed to the mutual attraction between two
masses - a guess, since he had no other explanation to offer.

I don't disagree with that, it was a conjecture and
as you say a very workable one. However, what Marcel
said was that the _value_ of Omega M had not been
measured, instead "assumptions were made a posteriori
in order to justify the observations."

How else do you make any measurement in astronomy but
"assume" a value that fits the observations ;-)

Dunno, never thought about it one way or the other.

I wonder if something may one day be found in the dark part of the
universe that may change our views again.

I certainly hope so, we know QM and GR don't mesh
easily, and dark matter and dark energy aren't
necessarily black, they are dark in the sense of
being as yet unexplained. We still have a lot to
discover.

`Dark' in the sense of being inaccessible to our senses at this
juncture. Assumed to be there a posteriori to fit our ideas about the
universe which are frequently revised.
I confess that I've never actually seen space or time, but I assume a
posteriori that they are there to explain observations - motion and
aging. Others offer convincing theories that only energy processes
exist - all the rest are our assumptions and fantasy.
George