AaS! 154: Is There REALLY a Crisis in Cosmology?

Ask a Spaceman!

Paul M. Sutter

Astrophysics, Science, Cosmos, Holes, Black, Astronomy, Natural Sciences, Universe, Cosmology, Space, Physics

4.8 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do we measure the age of the universe? Why are different methods giving different results? How do we solve this problem? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!

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Thanks to Cathy Rinella for editing.

Hosted by Paul M. Sutter, astrophysicist and the one and only Agent to the Stars (http://www.pmsutter.com).

Transcript

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0:00.0	So, uh, how exactly do you measure something like the age of the entire universe?
0:17.4	Being the avid, ask a spaceman listener that I know you are, I'm confident that you will not be surprised by the answer of,
0:24.2	it takes a lot of math.
0:26.4	Like, a lot.
0:28.6	But would have always found strange as people's reaction to scientific modeling, which is going to play a huge role in this episode.
0:36.4	We can't directly measure the age of the universe.
0:40.3	It's not like there's a clock out there ticking away,
0:42.9	and as long as we can build a powerful enough telescope, we can resolve it,
0:46.5	and we're just done, go home early, like stop accepting new students in the graduate
0:50.8	program.
0:51.3	It's all over.
0:51.9	No.
0:53.0	Measuring the age of the universe is an
0:54.9	indirect problem. We have to measure other things, then plug that into a fancy math equation,
1:01.1	and then that fancy math equation tells us the age. I mean, but the age of the universe is not
1:06.5	the only indirect measurement found in science, and whenever someone asked me a question, and I start
1:12.7	answering with, well, you take a model, you know, their faces make this weird expression like
1:17.2	they just tasted whatever they ate six hours ago. Not exactly unpleasant, but also not exactly
1:22.9	welcome. It's just weird. It's such a strange reaction. But I think that people don't understand models and don't trust models, and they don't like models.
1:31.3	And honestly, I can't blame them.
1:33.5	Like, I'm recording this episode in the late spring of 2021, and we're on the nth wave of the coronavirus pandemic, where N is either two or three or 57, depending on who you ask.
1:45.3	And by and large, our models of how the pandemic would spread, how the virus would spread,
	...

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