View Single Post
  #6 (permalink)  
Old 11-October-2005, 01:00 PM
Gas Giant Gas Giant is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 217
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by parallaxicality
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.
In his fervour to show his knowledge, he's got it wrong. It's 13.7 bn light years to the cosmic light horizon. The present distance to the edge of the observable universe is much greater, due to expansion. Current estimate is about 78 bn light years.

Maybe Katie should rewrite the first line of the stanza to read "We're eighty billion light years from the edge."
Reply With Quote