(fwd) WMAP results
boud
boud w astro.uni.torun.pl
Śro, 12 Lut 2003, 17:18:12 CET
It's amazing how when enough people say the same wrong statement, it
starts to become perceived as truth. Actually, it's not that amazing,
it's a well-known empirical result in psychology.
Why spoil the analysis of a beautiful data set by saying the wrong
statement
"The Universe is flat"
when the correct statement is that
"the *observable* Universe is *approximately* flat"
? The WMAP data do not change this situation, though 1sigma = +- 0.02
gives 3 sigma +- 0.06 which means that the curvature radius is at
least 12 h^-1 Gpc instead of 9.5h^-1Gpc (for +- 0.1) in comoving units
at 3sigma. It's still like saying the Earth is flat because Africa
is flat. Well, the Earth *is* (nearly) flat.
> 1. The data let you constrain cosmological parameters much more precisely
> than before. In particular, the age of the Universe is 13.7 +/- 0.2 Gyr.
> (Not that long ago, we couldn't say more than "12 to 20 Gyr"!) The
> Universe is flat: Omega total is 1.02 +/- 0.02. The densities of
> various forms of matter and energy are pinned down quite well too.
Anyway, nice to finally see the MAP map :) It's beautiful.
boud
Więcej informacji o liście Cosmo-torun