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Old 06-September-2007, 05:20 PM
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Tim Thompson Tim Thompson is offline
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Lightbulb Here & Now

Quote:
Originally Posted by DBryan View Post
The main point of my posting is that very quickly our view of space is 'distorted' because we are looking back in time. We are not seeing 'now'.
That is both correct, and very much in the mind of all cosmologists

Quote:
Originally Posted by DBryan View Post
And yet Cosmologists seem to make regular 'claims' (hypotheses) about the 'now' universe eg 'the universe IS expanding' implying that it is expanding NOW.
This is a misinterpretation of what cosmologists are saying. The universe is in fact expanding now, where "now" means "as we see it in our own, local here & now". Cosmologists certainly do not claim that the universe is expanding "now" in some global sense of "now", and indeed any cosmologist is likely to tell you that "now" in the global sense is not even a viable concept.

Whan cosmologists talk about that universe, they are always talking about the observable universe, as we see it, in our own local here & now, unless they explicitly say otherwise (which they sometimes do).
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The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. -- Bertrand Russell