on 4/27/2002 2:35 AM, Duncan Bath at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > To have these (stellar and galactic) distances expounded > in Zm (or whatever) is, to me, virtually > meaningless. I have an inherenly better grasp of such distances if given in > terms of light-years.
I can't believe that is true. Whether expressed in light-years (l.y.) or zetametres (Zm), these distanes are so "humongous" that I don't believe ANYONE can really grasp their size, no matter how they are expressed. The light year does provide an interesting analogy by comparing the distance with time, but when we talk about a million or a billion light-years, I don't think anyone can adequately grasp the length of time in a million years (much less a billion). It doesn't help much to know that that is when the dinosaurs lived. If it were really helpful to compare the distance to how far light could travel, one could just identify the zetametre as the distance that light would travel in about 100 000 years. Now "we can all visualize that", can't we! All we need to know is how fast light travels. That's a speed of 300 000 kilometres per second. I'm sure "we all can visualize that", can't we! (In case you hadn't noticed, I'm being sarcastic. I know I can't visualize those things and I don't believe anyone else can either, not really! Regards, Bill Hooper college physics teacher (retired), USA (Florida) +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Do It Easy, Do It Metric! +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
