The Andromeda Galaxy And The Truth

TO THE UK.SCI.ASTRONOMY NEWSGROUP

I have an enquiry which people in this Astronomy Newsgroup
may wish to ponder upon if they so wish:

1 The Andromeda Galaxy has been stated as having the
following distances in millions of light years: 2.2mly, 2.5mly,
2.9mly, or whatever any other figure. What is the
"current distance?"

2 Following on, much more seriously, can human beings ever
truly know The Absolute Truth when discussing The Universe
and all that is within it? The Revisionist Instinct is truly alive
and well in astronomy.


Thank you.

Brian Devonald

"BRIAN DEVONALD" wrote:

2 Following on, much more seriously, can human beings ever
truly know The Absolute Truth when discussing The Universe
and all that is within it? The Revisionist Instinct is truly alive
and well in astronomy.

There is no such thing as The Absolute Truth in science, only a
current set of theories which best fit the observations. Only
religions propound Absolute Truths.

--
Mike Humberston
WARNING: Spam trap in operation. Send any e-mail reply to mike, not oblivion.

The current width from arm to arm of the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.9mly across.
"BRIAN DEVONALD" wrote in message
...

TO THE UK.SCI.ASTRONOMY NEWSGROUP

I have an enquiry which people in this Astronomy Newsgroup
may wish to ponder upon if they so wish:

1 The Andromeda Galaxy has been stated as having the
following distances in millions of light years: 2.2mly, 2.5mly,
2.9mly, or whatever any other figure. What is the
"current distance?"

2 Following on, much more seriously, can human beings ever
truly know The Absolute Truth when discussing The Universe
and all that is within it? The Revisionist Instinct is truly alive
and well in astronomy.


Thank you.

Brian Devonald

It's actually less than 1/10 of that - I find figures from 100,000 to
200,000 light years.
The currently accepted distance seems to be 2.2 million light years, but
another source says 780,000 parsecs, or about 2.5 million light years.
Scientists leave the search for Truth to religion, and to reliable
sources such as politicians and journalists.
They revise their estimates of things which can be measured as new
evidence is found.

In message , Benjamin
Millward writes
The current width from arm to arm of the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.9mly across.
"BRIAN DEVONALD" wrote in message
...

TO THE UK.SCI.ASTRONOMY NEWSGROUP

I have an enquiry which people in this Astronomy Newsgroup
may wish to ponder upon if they so wish:

1 The Andromeda Galaxy has been stated as having the
following distances in millions of light years: 2.2mly, 2.5mly,
2.9mly, or whatever any other figure. What is the
"current distance?"

2 Following on, much more seriously, can human beings ever
truly know The Absolute Truth when discussing The Universe
and all that is within it? The Revisionist Instinct is truly alive
and well in astronomy.

--
Rabbit arithmetic - 1 plus 1 equals 10
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

"BRIAN DEVONALD" wrote:

The Revisionist Instinct is truly alive
and well in astronomy.

SINCERE value="Rare"
I'm sincerely delighted to hear it. Thank you.
/SINCERE value="Martin is himself again"

--
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 02 E 0 47

"Martin Frey" wrote
The Revisionist Instinct is truly alive
and well in astronomy.

SINCERE value="Rare"
I'm sincerely delighted to hear it. Thank you.
/SINCERE value="Martin is himself again"

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Closing tags may not have attributes.

"Mike Humberston" wrote in message
...
"BRIAN DEVONALD" wrote:

2 Following on, much more seriously, can human beings ever
truly know The Absolute Truth when discussing The Universe
and all that is within it? The Revisionist Instinct is truly alive
and well in astronomy.

There is no such thing as The Absolute Truth in science, only a
current set of theories which best fit the observations. Only
religions propound Absolute Truths.


There is a school of thought which says it is "42". This is expounded in
that famous philosophical work "Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy".

Apart from this, most religions I know of have Deities whose wisdom is far
beyond that of human understanding, so if there is "Absolute Truth" it may
not be ours any time soon. Bearing in mind that it has been demonstrated
that we cannot even get enough information about the earth's atmosphere to
accurately predict the weather, the chance of knowing everything about the
Universe does seem rather low.

If by "Revisionist Instinct" you mean that we do not uncritically accept
today what was established truth yesterday, it is a good thing this is alive
or else we might still be painting pretty pictures on cave walls. All
science and technology - including that which you have used to initiate this
discussion - depends on this.
--
- Yokel -
oo oo
OOO OOO
OO 0 OO
) ( I ) (
) ( /\ ) (

"Yokel" now posts via a spam-trap account.
Replace my alias with stevejudd to reply.

Yokel wrote:
There is a school of thought which says it is "42".

There are two possible explanations for this:

(a) 42 [denary] is 101010 [binary]. 101010 could be "letterised" to
IOIOIO, or I owe, I owe, I owe. Ergo life , the universe and everything
is founded on permanent debt.

(b) You may recall the scrabble game with the cave men. The question
"What is six times nine" came up. The answer is 54 [denary]. This is 42
[base 13]. Ergo life, the universe and everything is founded on
triskaidekaphobia (or just sheer bad luck).

Maybe both are true?

Best,
Stephen

Remove footfrommouth to reply

--
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"BRIAN DEVONALD" wrote in message ...
TO THE UK.SCI.ASTRONOMY NEWSGROUP

I have an enquiry which people in this Astronomy Newsgroup
may wish to ponder upon if they so wish:

1 The Andromeda Galaxy has been stated as having the
following distances in millions of light years: 2.2mly, 2.5mly,
2.9mly, or whatever any other figure. What is the
"current distance?"

2 Following on, much more seriously, can human beings ever
truly know The Absolute Truth when discussing The Universe
and all that is within it? The Revisionist Instinct is truly alive
and well in astronomy.


Thank you.

Brian Devonald

When Albert wrote the piece below in 1920,the scale of the cosmos in
terms of galaxies had yet to be discovered (1923).



"There are stars everywhere, so that the density of matter, although
very variable in detail, is nevertheless on the average everywhere the
same. In other words: However far we might travel through space, we
should find everywhere an attenuated swarm of fixed stars of
approximately the same kind and density.
This view is not in harmony with the theory of Newton. The latter
theory rather requires that the universe should have a kind of centre
in which the density of the stars is a maximum, and that as we proceed
outwards from this centre the group-density of the stars should
diminish, until finally, at great distances, it is succeeded by an
infinite region of emptiness. The stellar universe ought to be a
finite island in the infinite ocean of space."

http://www.bartleby.com/173/30.html


Poor Albert just dismissed the notion of a galaxy and stellar rotation
around the galactic center,today it should look primitive to a man of
reasonable intelligence given the vantage point of 2004 rather than
1920 when it was written.

You may not chose to read what the outlook was in 1920 but
unfortunately that view prevails with the exception that it has
progressed from Albert's stellar circumpolar framework to the
egocentric "every valid point is the center" framework and no further
intellectual descent is possible.Often the intimidation of your peers
prevents people from questioning the foundations of an astronomical
outlook that can best described as being primitive for a simple glance
at the passage above will prove it so.

We may actually be the dumbest race ever to set foot on the planet,at
least astronomically speaking.Perhaps this group should call itself
something else other than attach the word 'astronomy' to it.

(Oriel36) wrote:

Poor Albert ....
We may actually be the dumbest race ever to set foot on the planet,at
least astronomically speaking.Perhaps this group should call itself
something else other than attach the word 'astronomy' to it.

What exactly did Albert do to you that got so far up your nostril as
to damage the brain so badly?

If this group is not about astronomy and you are interested in
astronomy, please find a group more to your taste. Search for kooks or
conspiracies or everyone is dumb save thee and me, or maybe even
martyrdom, or the Cassandra Syndrome.

--
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 02 E 0 47