Astronomers Puzzled by Massive Blank Spot in Universe!

[TerriO]

And you naturally assume that everyone reads all of the sublinks on every page you've linked to?

That may work for other forums, but if you want your argument to be taken seriously, it helps to actually link to something that hasn't been proven to have questionable reliability.

Now, can we please get back to the subject?

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Toresica said:
Can somebody explain to me how "nothing" is different from the vacuum (okay, fine, near vacuum) of intergalactic space?

It's just a VOID, this news isn't really that new and we've know about this stuff for decades. The interstellar medium although it qualifies as empty space it still has a lot of dust/gas compared to a 'pure vacuum'

Here's a link to an old paper going back to 1982
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982Natur.300..407Z

Some of these `voids' have diameters of about 100 MILLION lightyears.
To put that huge distance in scale, the star Alpha Centauri lies about 4 light-years away

 

[ancient]

There's nothing more interesting than nothing.

 

[Hippokrene]

In the future, please don't link to Wikipedia, which presents information in an easy-to-understand method, and provides links to detailed articles for important concepts, but link directly to the source so I can read something like (second paragraph from the original paper in question): Parameters of voids depend on the resolution parameter k used in calculation. At small resolutions we detect only the largest voids. At high resolutions, if the size of small cells l=L/K << 24 -1h Mpc (where L is the size of the sample cube) then we obtain, in addition to real voids, a number of small voids which are located inside superclusters. Therefore we use a medium value of the resoltion parameter: k=24, which corresponds to a cell size of l=25 h-1 Mpc.

 

[TerriO]

Hippokrene, do yourself a favor and just don't.

I don't give a damn how "easy to understand" you may think it is. An "encyclopedia" with no peer review process, that anyone can edit, and that has been documented to contain errors, is not inherently a reliable source.

The Register's article on Wikipedia's quality problems.

The Chronicle of Higher Education on Whether Wikipedia Can Ever Make the Grade

People have even experimented to see how long errors they put in would stand before they were corrected. Only to find that these errors weren't edited out by other users.

The evidence is there that Wikipedia isn't a reliable primary source, no matter how "easy to understand" the information may be presented, there's no way to verify that the information presented is accurate.

So, let's try to get back the the topic, please, without the trolling attitude.

 

[Neroon]

I've long considered the "Astronomy Picture of the Day" website to be pretty reliable, but that's strictly from my extremely limited POV. The reason I mention this is because today's entry involves the void that is the original topic here: Link

Now, the accompanying text does link to Wiki for the definition of a couple of terms. Then again that's in a purely supportive role and not as primary material.

 

[Hippokrene]

TerriO said:
Hippokrene, do yourself a favor and just don't.

I don't give a damn how "easy to understand" you may think it is. An "encyclopedia" with no peer review process, that anyone can edit, and that has been documented to contain errors, is not inherently a reliable source.

There is no such thing as an inherently reliable source.

You are however suggesting that while talking about a topic, a poster is better off linking to what for the majority of people is incoherent garble because you don't think Wikipedia is accurate enough. I'm disagreeing with that suggestion.

To paraphrase yourself: I don't "give a damn" how inaccurate a source you may think Wikipedia is. A Non-Wiki "article" that makes no sense to me is useless to me. The original Wiki link supplied *is* useful to me. I appreciate it being posted, far more than the original paper it's based on.

If, in the future, Arrghman is wondering whether to post a Wikipedia article or a link to a paper that a layperson would be unable to understand, then I would urge him to link to the Wiki. If you understand the original paper, then you have an excellent grasp of physics and mathematics, and I applaud and envy you, but please be aware that not everyone does.

 

[Arrqh]

I personally don't understand how people can say that Wikipedia as a whole is inherently unreliable.

The nature of Wikipedia means, to me, that the reliability is highly variable from article to article. I would not have linked to the article on Voids if it had not been sourced as it was. For the context of this discussion on voids (what they are and why this one is notable) the Wiki article provides a very serviceable explanation. This would have been apparent to anyone who decided to actually read the article, which I do not believe Johnny Rico did based on his knee jerk response (and failure to respond to the validity of this particular article).

I would certainly never rely on Wikipedia for doing any serious research. But that is not what this thread represents judging by the comments in this thread before we veered off onto this tangent. And all that is besides the point; in this particular case the article was accurate and I think I've proven this to be the case... so why is there still a fuss? If a particular article is accurate, as this one was, then there shouldn't be any problem linking to it on a message forum. Certainly, one should yield to a more authoritative source if it presents itself... but to blanket assume that a Wikipedia article is completely inaccurate without even reading the article and seeing the sources is downright silly.

 

[Trekker4747]

What is it?

I'm thinking Roside O'Donnell went on a bender one night.

 

[TerriO]

Hippokrene said:

TerriO said:
Hippokrene, do yourself a favor and just don't.

I don't give a damn how "easy to understand" you may think it is. An "encyclopedia" with no peer review process, that anyone can edit, and that has been documented to contain errors, is not inherently a reliable source.

There is no such thing as an inherently reliable source.

A peer-reviewed scientific journal tends to be an inherently reliable source, no?

You are however suggesting that while talking about a topic, a poster is better off linking to what for the majority of people is incoherent garble because you don't think Wikipedia is accurate enough. I'm disagreeing with that suggestion.

Okay, how do you know that the person who wrote the "explanation" actually knew what the hell they were talking about?

To paraphrase yourself: I don't "give a damn" how inaccurate a source you may think Wikipedia is. A Non-Wiki "article" that makes no sense to me is useless to me. The original Wiki link supplied *is* useful to me. I appreciate it being posted, far more than the original paper it's based on.

Again, how can you be convinced that the Wiki that's explaining it to you is accurate? A Wiki is something that can be edited by anyone. Therefore, someone who only has a vague idea of what they're talking about can very easily write an article that's completely inaccurate.

If, in the future, Arrghman is wondering whether to post a Wikipedia article or a link to a paper that a layperson would be unable to understand, then I would urge him to link to the Wiki. If you understand the original paper, then you have an excellent grasp of physics and mathematics, and I applaud and envy you, but please be aware that not everyone does.

And please be aware that Wiki is something that can have errors far more easily than a peer reviewed paper or a scientific journal.

I'm not about to ban Wikipedia links. That's just stupid and ridiculous. However, a primary link to Wikipedia may or may not impact how seriously your argument is taken.

I'll just let one of the guys from the Wikimedia Foundation say it for me:

But despite this backlash against the popular site, Wikipedia officials maintain that the encyclopedia can be a useful and accurate source as long as it is used correctly.

Mathias Schindler, a member of the Communications Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation, the umbrella organization of Wikipedia, said while Middlebury’s history department’s policy is reasonable, students can in fact augment their research by using Wikipedia.

“It’s usually not advisable, particularly at the university level, to cite an encyclopedia,” Schindler said in an e-mail. “This does not mean Wikipedia is not a useful resource. Wikipedia is a great place to start your research, but students should not use it as the final word on any subject matter.”

Emphasis mine.

If anyone would like to start a thread debating the validity of Wikipedia as a primary source, you're welcome to.

ETA: Tell you what, I'll start the thread.

Now, let's get back to the subject at hand, please.

 

[scottydog]

About the huge blank spot: Isn't it true that astronomers are puzzled by MANY things about the universe? And I'm not just talking about minor little mysteries-- I'm referring to huge unknowns, like the nature of dark matter, for example.

The vastness of our ignorance about the universe is about equal to the vastness of its size. I just wish I could be around long enough to witness the unraveling of all these mysteries!

 

[Aragorn]

Unicron ate everything in that region of space.