Yanniru, my problem with evolution is that it is put upon young people propaganda-style, by not telling them what is wrong with it [lack of transitional fossils, lack of evidence for abiogenesis, lack of mechanism to account for the mind-boggleing increase in complexity between an amoeba and a man etc].

I must admit that it suprises me to learn that you are not a Big Bang fan. Actually, I have no problem with it, to the extent that space/time matter and energy all owe their origin to a single event. I don’t understand the string-stuff [except in a very superficial sense], but I agree with you in there being a pre-existent "non-thing" that started the whole thing.

Yanniru, as you are a scientist and I am not, I would appreciate your opinion on triangulation, or perhaps you can correct me if my thinking is wrong. The way I understand it, they use the orbit of the earth as the base of the triangle, then triangulate to a distant body [star galaxy etc], factor in the speed of light, and presto.

There are two things I would question about this. One is, how can you be sure the speed of light is constant over such vast distances of space/time? Or is it just assumed to be constant.

The second is related to the geometry. Let me use an analogy here. Let’s say you and I decide to measure the distance from New York City to Bejing China [assuming it were possible-sans earth curvature of course] using an arms length between us as the triangle-base. It would seem the angles involved would be so extreme [at the apex] that we could come up with just about anything, in terms of distance. What do you think?

Brian

• Triangulation and the speed of light - yanniru - May 29, 2001 - 12:10 UTC
  • Parallax measurements are simple. - alexander - May 30, 2001 - 22:54 UTC
    • thank you both - isaiaha41 - June 2, 2001 - 11:37 UTC
      • It is not a premise - yanniru - June 2, 2001 - 12:46 UTC