11-October-2005, 09:04 AM
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: A' Ghàidhealtachd
Posts: 1,966
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by parallaxicality
For those of you of a Leftpondian persuasion, Katie Melua is a British singer of Georgian (the country, not the state) extraction. Pretty in a dark way with a sweet, bubbly voice and a prediliction for slow, jazzy ballads with slightly odd lyrics. She's recently caused a minor astronomical firestorm in the UK by singing the following stanza in her recent single, "Nine Million Bicycles":
We are twelve billion light years from the edge,
That's a guess,
No-one can ever say it's true
But I know that I will always be with you.
Science writer Simon Singh fired back in The Guardian that he happened to KNOW with absolute certainty that the actual distance to the edge of the universe was exactly 13.7 billion light years, and to claim any other figure, or, God forbid, to claim it is a guess, is a slap in the face to all the astronomers who spent so many years working out Hubble's constant.
But then a second group of astronomers have apparently rushed to her defence, and though I don't have their exact quote, I imagine that they remind the general public that nothing is absolutely known in science.
It just seems so unfair. We don't hold our politicians to such a level of scientific scrutiny, why single out balladeers?
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It's pedantry, of the very worst kind. It's just the lyrics to a song! I'd be surprised if the general public, or in fact anybody outside the astronomical community, gives the vaguest hoot about it. And those who do give the vaguest hoot about it ought to take a long, hard look at themselves.
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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.
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